


Finding Felicity

by sprayadhesive



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-01 17:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprayadhesive/pseuds/sprayadhesive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity's missing. Oliver's desperate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Felicity looked at the caller ID and answered the phone with a smile on her face. With a quick look to make sure that Oliver wasn’t in an important meeting - he wasn’t - she curled her legs up under her and grinned into the phone, “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?”

She, although she would never admit it to him, had started to love her new job as Oliver’s executive assistant. The pay was better, she got to see more of him and Diggle, and her skillset was being put to use by The Arrow instead of being wasted by people complaining that their computer wasn’t working only for her to go to their office and find out that it wasn’t even plugged in to begin with. Still, she missed some parts of IT, and that definitely included her colleagues. 

“Absolutely!” she grinned. “Do you guys want to meet at Smith’s Bar like normal?”

She was glad to hear from them. The IT department was on the 7th floor, but it may have been across town for how much she got to go down there. She wasn’t exactly oozing free time anymore, and as Oliver’s assistant she needed to be at her desk or at his side at all times. 

They were finalizing her plans as Oliver left his office. He raised an eyebrow at her, “Hot date?”

“Oh, the hottest,” she replied lightly. She ignored the way his eyes shot up to hers when she said that. He was probably just surprised to hear a guy liked her. She was, after all, completely asexual to him. At least, that’s how he acted towards her. Not that she minded. Or did she? She didn’t know. And she was entitled to that, thank you very much, because "Oliver Queen & Felicity Smoak" was SO never happening. “IT department and I are going out for drinks tonight. Don’t worry, I’ll have my phone on me so that if you or Diggle call, I can be there in less than 10 minutes, and... ”

“Felicity.” He gave her a small smile, placing his hand on her desk. The look from his eyes had vanished and been replaced with a twinkle, but she knew he was just being charming for charm’s sake,. They weren’t twinkling because of her. “You don’t need to make contingency plans for your social life. Diggle and I will be fine without you tonight. Have fun.”

He walked towards the door, pointing at the clock, “I’m having lunch with some German investors. I don’t know when I’ll be back exactly. Don’t forget to eat.”

She received a text later in the afternoon saying that his lunch was going longer than he thought, to cancel any other meetings that he had on his schedule, and that he wouldn’t be back at the office that day. She powered down her computer at 5, left work, and headed home.

He couldn’t have known that she would turn up missing the next day.


	2. Chapter 2

Oliver frowned when Felicity wasn’t at her desk when he got to work that morning. He knew that she had told him about plans with friends the night before, maybe she had too much fun and was running late? Still, it was 9am and she wasn’t here. He normally always arrived after her, and he had long suspected that she came into work an hour early even though she was always up late helping out with The Arrow. 

He settled into his office and started reading a rather long, extremely boring report from the company’s branch in Metropolis. By the time he looked up, it was noon. Felicity still wasn’t there.

Oliver frowned and called her cell. She didn’t answer. Felicity was a creature of habit, and she loved her devices more than anything. Her phone was never more than a foot away from her. He hadn’t known her to ever not answer her cell phone.

Still, he tried to convince himself, she could have had too much to drink last night. This wasn’t the island, and she wasn’t The Arrow. A person not being where they were supposed to didn’t automatically mean that they were in trouble. There was no need to panic, not really. 

He turned on his computer and waited for it to boot up. Maybe she had taken a day off or had an appointment. 

If there wasn’t anything on his calendar, he would call Diggle at the shooting range and see if he knew anything. 

His jaw tightened when his computer refused to start. He tried one more time, because he had heard Felicity complaining loudly to Digg about people calling into the IT department prematurely, and then called down to the 7th floor.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Queen, how can we help you?”

“I can’t seem to get my computer to start up. Can you send someone up to take a look?”

“Sure thing, someone will be right with you.”

Minutes later, a guy from IT that Oliver had never met (unsurprising, because after a year he still hadn’t come close to meeting everyone in the company) was sitting in Oliver’s chair, “It looks like you have a pretty nasty virus.”

“Can you fix it?” Oliver groaned. His computer was completely backed up, but he didn’t need the inconvenience right now. And, he really wanted access to his calendar. He hated that he hadn’t listened to Felicity. Just last week, she told him how to sync his phone calendar and computer calendar. She’d even offered to do it for him, but he’d been too anxious to go scope out the drop spot for a drug transaction that he hadn’t wanted to wait. He should have waited.

“It may take me a day or so. I’ll get another computer sent up for you in the meantime.”

Oliver groaned again in frustration, earning him a weird look from the IT guy. He couldn’t help but think that Felicity would be able to fix it faster. In fact, if she was here, she probably would have had it fixed already. He looked to the guy and extended his hand, “Sorry. It’s been a long day. Thanks…”

“Richard,” the IT guy supplied, taking Oliver’s handshake. Richard was tall and lanky, with absolutely no muscle to him and long, greasy brown hair. His body screamed of a person who had spent their life sitting in front of a computer, but Richard’s grip was fiercely tight, like he was trying to crush Oliver’s hand.

“Richard. Right. Thanks again” Oliver gave him a tense smile, returning the firm handshake in kind. 

Richard started walking towards the door, but Oliver called out, “Hey, actually, before you go.. you guys went out with Felicity last night, right?”

Richard’s eyes went to Felicity’s empty desk and then back to Oliver, “Yeah, down over at Smith’s. Why? Is something wrong?”

“I just haven’t seen her today.” He was trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. To Queen Consolidated, Oliver was no more than Felicity’s boss. They didn’t have a relationship outside of this office, and there was no reason why Oliver should be asking about her extracurricular activities. Asking too many questions would cause awkward and unanswerable questions for the both of them. If she was already mad at him for moving her from the IT department, he didn’t want to know how mad she would be if her former colleagues started gossiping about her because of him. He hated her being mad.

Luckily for him, Richard was forthcoming, “I watched her get into her car last night. She hadn’t had more than a beer or two.”

“I’m sure she had an appointment,” Oliver finished, but it sounded lame to him. He walked Richard to the elevator. “Thanks again for the help.”

Richard promised, again, to have a new computer sent up as soon as possible. As soon as the elevator doors closed, Oliver had his phone in his hand. He didn’t want to bother her, really, but he had to know if she was ok. 

She didn’t answer. Again. He called Diggle.

“Digg?” There was a lot of shooting range noise in the background. 

“What’s up?” Digg shouted.

“Felicity.”

The noise stopped immediately. Digg’s voice was tense, “Is she ok?”

“She didn’t come in for work today, and I can’t get her on the phone.” Oliver was already picking up his keys and heading for the elevator. “I’m going to her apartment. Standby in case I need you.”

“Always. I’ll head to Verdant now, just in case,” Digg replied. Oliver could hear the worry in his voice.

It took longer than he would have liked for him to travel across town to Felicity’s apartment, even on motorcycle. He caught every red light and got stuck behind every slow driver. When he finally found himself in front of her apartment, he replaced his helmet with a baseball hat and sunglasses. They didn’t even know if anything was wrong yet, so there was no reason to draw attention by having Felicity’s billionaire boss show up in the middle of the day. He didn’t want that going into any gossip magazines.

He knocked on Felicity’s door. He had always imagined coming to her apartment under different circumstances, and the noise sounded hollow to him. He shifted awkwardly, waiting for her annoyed face to appear in the doorway at any moment.

It didn’t come. He waited a few more seconds, and then knocked again. 

Nothing happened. 

Just because Felicity wasn’t home, didn’t mean that she was in danger. He was being paranoid, and he knew it. Even still, with a quick look to either side of him, he pulled out a pin from his pocket and picked the lock on the door. It sprung open.

The apartment was dark, and the curtains were all still drawn. The front entryway was empty, and no coats were on the hooks. He tried to remember what she had been wearing yesterday, but he couldn’t remember.

“Felicity?” He called into the silence. “It’s Oliver. Are you home?”

No one answered him. He walked through the entryway and into the kitchen, but there was no sign of her. It was spotlessly clean.

The living room was the same. Nothing offered him a hint of where Felicity was or where she could be. 

Oliver hesitated outside of her bedroom door. If he was overreacting and Felicity was at an appointment or out of town for the day, she would probably be livid that he had broken into her apartment much less gone through her bedroom.

He opened her bedroom door. Her room was spotless, just like the rest of her apartment. He should have known that she would be a neat freak. Her bed, covered in a white quilt, was made immaculately. Awards and decorations from schools and competitions past covered the wall above her desk. Her college diploma was framed next to her bed. Magna cum laude from MIT. He should have known. He felt his cheeks burn in embarrassment, realizing that he was violating her privacy. 

She wasn’t there, but that’s not what worried him. Her bag, tablet, and laptop were all stacked neatly on her desk. Oliver had never seen her leave her apartment without at least her tablet. She always told him that it was because she wasn’t sure whether or not The Arrow would need assistance, and she always wanted to be prepared. He also thought she was somewhat of an addict when it came to technology, but he would never tell her that.

He could feel in his bones that something was wrong. He searched her desk for any trace of where she could be, but he didn’t find anything. Powering on her tablet, he checked her calendar. He was slightly bemused to see that Felicity had noted a rough version of his workout schedule. Why would she need that?

When his eyes landed on today’s date, he knew something was definitely wrong. There wasn’t a trace of an appointment or a vacation. She had even scheduled a hair appointment during what should have been her lunch break.

“Hello, is this Salon 13?” Oliver already had them on the phone. “Did Felicity Smoak make her appointment today?”

They hadn’t seen her. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. She was missing. 

Oliver walked out of the apartment, grabbing her spare key and locking it behind him on the way. He called Diggle, “She’s not here.”

Recounting everything that had happened and everything he had checked, Diggle agreed to start working on researching her whereabouts while Oliver travelled.

“I’m not seeing any signal from the GPS on her phone.”

Oliver wasn’t surprised to see Diggle still working at the computers when he came down the stairs into the basement. He was surprised that there wasn’t a signal. Felicity had told them that she had supercharged the chips in their phones so much that the only thing that would stop from tracking each other would be to smash the phones.

“This isn’t good,” Oliver bent over the monitor, scanning the GPS results. What could have happened to her?

“We don’t have anything to go off of,” Diggle started running Felicity’s financials. She had taught him how to do a few, basic tasks in case of her absence. He was glad that she had, but he was quickly running out of options. 

“Keep looking,” Oliver replied. He set his jaw. “We’ll find her.” 

We have to find her, he said to himself. 

Three hours later, and Diggle still hadn’t been able to find anything. The night was slipping away, and Felicity could have been missing for anywhere up to 24 hours. Oliver wasn’t confident anymore. They had absolutely nothing to go on. Endless, terrible possibilities were replaying again and again in his brain.

“We need access to the surveillance system around Smith’s,” he said absent-mindedly. “And hack into the traffic cam database and see if we can find her license plate anywhere after she left the bar last night.”

Digg grimaced, “That’s stuff that only Felicity knows how to do. You know what you’re going to have to do to get them, right?”

Oliver looked at him, questioningly.

“Call Lance,” Diggle supplied. “He’d help anyways. They’ve been friends ever since the quake.”

“Friends?” Oliver looked confused.

“She does have a personal life, you know,” Diggle sighed, but there was a look in his eye that Oliver didn’t quite understand.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Diggle smirked. “But call Lance.”

Oliver grabbed the phone and called. Knowing that the voice changing technology that was already installed on the phone only reminded him more of Felicity and her absence. She’s the only one out of them who would know how to do something like that. He felt his heart skip in his chest. What was that? He was just worried, that’s all.

“Strange hearing from you before midnight,” Lance greeted him.

“Felicity Smoak has gone missing. She hasn’t been heard from for 24 hours,” Oliver’s voice was low. 

“It takes 48 hours for a missing persons--” Lance started.

Oliver cut him off, “I think you can appreciate the unique position that Felicity is in, being my associate.”

The words were thick in his mouth as he said them. He’d been thinking it all morning and afraid to articulate it, but it was true. Felicity's disappearance was probably his fault. He had made her a target as soon as he had revealed his identity to her. He had been keeping her at an arm’s length like he did everyone in his life, because he knew that caring about her would only put her in danger and hurt her, but it hadn’t protected her and it hadn’t stopped him from caring about her.

“It takes 48 hours for a missing persons, but I’ll see what I can do in the meantime,” Lance finished somewhat exasperatedly. “What do you need exactly?”

“I need access to the traffic camera footage from last night, and any footage from security cameras that are around Smith’s Bar. And an issue out to patrols to keep an eye out for her car.”

“That’s going to take time. The traffic cams I can probably have to you in a few hours. The other surveillance tapes, we may need to wait for the official channels...”

“Detective,” Oliver warned. He couldn’t wait that long.

“I will do the best that I can do to get it to you as soon as possible.”

“Fine,” Oliver conceded. He detailed how Lance could drop the files into remote cloud storage. “Call me as soon as you have something.”

 

\---

Felicity jolted awake. Her head was foggy, and she felt stiff. Her headache was worse than any she had ever had, including college. 

Peeking an eye open, she immediately frowned. This was not her room. 

She shut her eyes tight, trying to remember. What happened last night?

She groaned. She had gone out and met the guys from IT at Smith’s. She’d drank, but not enough to have a hangover, right? No, definitely not enough for a hangover. She’d only had two beers.

She racked her brain, trying to remember. Why was she so foggy? After she’d left the bar, she had walked to her car and…

She remembered. Her eyes snapped open, and she tried to sit upright. Her head slammed against metal, and she recoiled back down. Taking a minute to calm herself, she took in her surroundings.

She was in a very small, very dimly lit room. There were no windows, very little furniture, and the only door into the room didn’t have a handle on it. She tried to move away from it, but quickly realized where she had gone wrong. She was in a cage that was probably more suitably sized for a large dog instead of a grown woman.

Felicity gulped.

She had never liked small places, and now that she realized that she was in one, it seemed even smaller. Without meaning to, she screamed in fear. Her hands flew to her mouth, trying fruitlessly to take the noise back. Then, realizing that it could be her best option, she screamed again, louder and with more purpose. She hoped with all her might that someone would be able to hear her.

After screaming as loud as she could for as long as she could without completely losing her voice, no one came. Nothing had happened.

She pushed at the bars around her, trying to see if they would give out. Maybe this was all some cruel practical joke. They didn’t budge. She quickly found the lock and tried to see if she could open it. It could be opened by a four digit code or by key. She mentally kicked herself for never asking Oliver to teach her how to pick a lot. She reminded herself that she didn’t even have anything in her pockets that she could use as a lock pick. 

Her rationality was starting to flee her, and panic was setting in. Her heart raced. She needed to get out of here. 

Oliver and Diggle would come for her. She’d had her phone on her when she was taken, so they should be here within minutes. Her boys. They would find her.

She held onto the thought, trying to calm herself down. But, just as her breathing steadied, she spotted her phone across the room on the floor. In a thousand pieces. 

Unwanted tears sprung into her eyes. She was in big trouble. Oliver and Diggle would never find her, and she had no idea why she was even here. What was the purpose?

As she cried, the door to the room opened. Richard Payne, from IT, came through the door. 

Felicity backed as far away from him as she could in her cage. She quickly wiped her cheeks of her tears, furious that he had seen her cry. She glared at him, “What do you want from me?”

“I just want you to be safe,” Richard stopped short at the question. He looked at her with pleading eyes, “I need to keep you safe.”

“The last time I was worried about someone, I didn’t lock them in a cage,” Felicity reasoned. “Let me out of here, Richard. Please. No one has to know that this happened. It’s not too late to let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

Richard smiled sadly at her, “I can’t. You’re with Oliver Queen, and that means that you aren’t safe.”

“I’m not WITH Oliver Queen,” Felicity sputtered, heat coming to her cheeks. “He’s my boss, I don’t even-- I haven’t-- I--”

Richard shook his head. “You help him with The Arrow.” 

His voice raised, “Don’t you know what kind of danger you’re putting yourself in?!”

“Oliver Queen isn’t The Arrow,” Felicity replied slowly. “You’re way off base, Richard.” 

She’d read somewhere to address an abductor by name. It was important to stay human to them, and to humanize them as well. She still wasn’t sure what was going on, and she wanted to try to get the upper hand. Well, as best she could from within her cage.

He seemed to snap. His eyes turned to pure rage, and he looked crazy as he yelled, “I’VE SEEN YOU! I’VE SEEN HIM! I KNOW IT’S TRUE!”

He touched something in his pocket and the door opened. He stormed out of the room before she could respond, and the door slammed behind him.

Felicity groaned, leaning backwards against the cage. Her people skills were, once again, less than stellar. This wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all. How could she humanize herself if he wasn’t even in the room?

But, Richard wasn’t gone for long. Within minutes, he was back with the wild look still in his eyes. He held a folder filled with a stack of papers in his hands. He crossed the room to her, and threw the papers down in front of the cage. They scattered across the floor in front of her, spreading out.

They weren’t papers at all. They were pictures. Her with Oliver. Her walking into work. Her going to lunch. Her with The Arrow. Her going home. Oliver, dressed as The Arrow, with his hood down, talking to Felicity in the alleyway outside of Verdant. All of the pictures were her, and they all were taken without her knowledge. 

Felicity felt bile rise in her throat, but tried to keep calm. She spoke slowly, her voice shaking, “Where did you get these pictures, Richard?”

Keep saying his name, she told herself. Try to keep a level of humanity. Be brave. Keep calm. Breathe.

“I took them,” Richard said proudly. He smiled shyly at her, “I’ve been watching you for a while. You’re… special to me. My Felicity.”

Felicity recoiled visibly. 

Richard saw, and his eyes grew hard. He chided her like she was a child, “I need you to understand. You were being reckless with your life, and I couldn’t allow you to do that to us. Not when we have so much more life to live together.”

Felicity shook her head at him, “You don’t get to decide that.”

“Yes!” He snapped, “Yes I do! I’m protecting you. You need me watching you so that I can protect you! You’re so fragile, Felicity...”

“I’m not,” Felicity tried to reason with him again, “If you let me out, maybe we can talk about this… I can show you that I can keep myself safe.”

Richard shook his head feverishly, “Oh no. I’m sorry about the accommodations, but you’ll have to stay there for now.” He gestured around him, “I didn’t have time to finish your room because I had to move my timetable up by a few months. I wasn’t planning on you being so reckless. Every week, you take more and more risks with him. You’ve been in enough danger for a lifetime already. There can’t be any more risk. I had to save you before it was too late.”

Felicity was beginning to feel hopeless. Richard was insane. Could she reason with someone that was so clearly imbalanced? She didn’t think so. But, she could still maybe overpower him. She just had to bide her time.

He got to his feet, gingerly collecting every picture that he had spread in front of her. “I’ll be back in a minute. I have a few things to set up for you, and then I will let you out. I promise.”

Felicity shivered. She watched and again he touched something in his pocket to make the door open. He must have the door wired electronically. 

The door closed behind him, and the anger, frustration, and fear that Felicity didn’t know that she had been suppressing surfaced in full force. Why was this happening?

She mentally shook herself. She needed focus. She was only a victim if she believed that she was one. Diggle had taught her that. He’d taught her to remain calm, and to look for every opportunity to escape. Oliver and Diggle never panicked when they were in danger. They would never break in front of an enemy. She would be brave for them.

She believed in her heart of hearts Oliver and Diggle would be there to save her. They would track her down someway. But, until then, she would have to try to save herself. She wasn’t going to give up.

The door opened back up and Richard carried bags and boxes with him. He gave her a smile (she shuddered in spite of herself) and walked to the wall across from the door.

He ignored her for hours as he worked. She watched as he affixed restraints to the wall, taking extra care in the measurements that she knew he’d gotten from her when she had been unconscious. She fought down her shudder again. He set up a cot and a mattress, and even proudly showed her a portable toilet that he slid underneath the bed. 

He was sick, she knew, but that didn’t help stop her from hating him more and more by the second.

When he was done, he smiled proudly at his work. He came back to stand by her cage.

He looked back at the closed door and then to Felicity, “It’s less than what I was hoping for, but with the rush… You’re going to stay here, where I can keep you safe. This will be your room. I’m going to let you out now. Please don’t try to escape. You don’t,” he paused, “want to make me mad.”

He punched a code into the lock on the cage and the door sprung free. 

Felicity climbed out slowly, her limbs and muscles sore from being cramped for hours, and she stretched out. She was calm, more calm than she should have been, and took the time to make a show of stretching out her muscles so as to not come off as a threat. 

When Richard took a step closer to her, she reacted. She threw herself, shoulder first, into his chest and they toppled to the ground. 

Diggle’s self defense had taught her how to get away from an attacker, but she had no idea how to overpower someone to take something from them. 

Richard was stunned at first, but then he swore and tried to move Felicity from being on top of him. When she moved a hand to try to get to the remote in his pocket, his fist caught her in the jaw.

Felicity was dazed, long enough for Richard to break another hand free and remove something from his pocket. Felicity saw it as the last second, but it was already too late. The needle had already sunk into her arm.

Her vision went blurry, and she was unconscious in seconds.

When she awoke, her hands were numb, and her wrists and ankles were sore. She tried to move them, but they held firm. 

She tried, again, but nothing happened. Her vision was still swimming. She paused, taking a few shallow breaths, before opening her eyes again. This time, she could see better. 

She was shackled to the wall. Richard stood in front of her, looking sheepish. He made a disapproving sound in the back of his throat, and she fought back the stream of curse words that came to mind. She wouldn’t let him break her, no matter how helpless she felt. Oliver was going to come for her any minute now.

“You’ve been asleep for hours. I’m sorry that you didn’t take me seriously,” Richard shook his head. “I think you need a few days to think about what you want to do, and how you want your future to be. Maybe you’ll be grateful for what I’ve given you. This can be a happy life, Felicity. A safe life. Don’t take it for granted.”

He crossed the room to her, and she tried again to free herself from her bonds. How often had Diggle told her about one of Oliver’s miraculous escapes from similar situations? She felt warm blood trickle down her wrists, and she barely muffled a cry of pain. 

“I’m going to give you something so that you won’t fight it so hard,” Richard insert another needle into her arm. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it here before you know it.”

Her head swam again. She couldn’t think clearly. She tried to say something, but her words wouldn’t come out. She barely registered him leaving the room. Minutes or hours later, she fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

It was 8 hours before the computer signaled that Lance had dropped files onto the cloud. Oliver clicked on it immediately.

He hadn’t been able to do anything for the last 8 hours. 

Diggle had gone home, changed, and returned. He’d also gone to the police station as Felicity’s concerned co-worker. They knew that Diggle going in and filing a concern officially would get the police started and hopefully help to break the case faster. Oliver wanted to give her all the help he possible could - even if it meant running the risk of Arrow and the police overlapping. He didn’t care about his safety, only hers, and they weren't getting the leads they needed to save her by acting alone.

Oliver had tried to workout, he really had. He’d gone to the salmon ladder and completed two rungs before he fell. He was too distracted by what could be happening to Felicity, and he was finding himself crippled by his inability to do anything to help her. The waiting was maddening, but he knew he would be useless if he tried to do anything else.

So, for the last few hours, he’d sat at the computers and stared at the screen. That’s how Diggle found him, just minutes before the computer beeped with the active download.

“I spoke with Lance. He didn’t give any indication that he already knew about her disappearance, and he said he’s going to call me if they find out anything,” Diggle sat next to Oliver. “He doesn’t suspect any connection between me and Arrow. Told him that she and I worked closely at QC.”

Oliver nodded, but couldn’t find any words to respond.

They sat in silence as they downloaded hours of traffic cam footage into Felicity’s program. Oliver typed her license plate number into the system, and the progress bar began to load. The program that she had created pulled every instance of the number entered from every frame of the footage, creating markers. Oliver had never told Felicity how impressed he was by it. Now, he didn’t know if he ever would. 

He felt his cheeks heat in shame at the thought, and he could feel Diggle watching him, so he fought to look unaffected. Lock it down, Oliver, he told himself.

“This is going to take a few hours to process,” Diggle looked at him sideways.

“We may not have a few more hours,” Oliver was anxious. Every hour that slipped by without a sign from Felicity or a call from her captors made him more and more nervous. Why had no one called with a ransom demand? Why hadn’t anyone demanded Arrow in exchange for Felicity? Did that mean… was she already dead? He swallowed hard. Remembering how closely Diggle was watching him, he set his jaw. “I’m going to start going through the footage manually in the meantime. We know that she was at Smith’s last night. I’ll start there, and hopefully we can manually trace her.

In another screen, he began watching footage at the intersection just outside of Smith’s bar. It was slow and tedious, and by the time that Oliver had finally seen her car appear (she was alone in the car, thankfully) in the intersection for the first time, more than an hour had slipped away. 

The program was still loading in the background. Oliver made a note to ask Felicity if there were any upgrades that they could make to get it to work faster. The things that could be happening to her since they had started it… 

“East on Penn,” Oliver muttered to Diggle through gritted teeth. 

Diggle pulled up the next traffic camera in that direction, “Yep, here she is. Turning right onto Elm.”

They continued like that for ten minutes, tracking every turn. With every screen, Oliver analyzed the car as best he could. In every frame, she was alone, but scared. What had happened to her at Smith’s?

They lost her car after a while, and Oliver backtracked to the place that they had last seen it, “What’s close to there, Digg? Can you pull up a map?”

Diggle pointed to the screen immediately, “Bus station.”

Oliver was already on his way to get dressed, “Stay here, and take my phone in case Lance calls. I’m going to go see if her car is still there or if there's any sign of her.” In an instant, he had his hood up and was gone.

Oliver returned less than an hour later. Diggle frowned, “Nothing?”

“Her car,” Oliver’s jaw was still set. He was getting more despondent by the hour, “It was in the best lit area of the parking lot, but she still wasn’t anywhere to be found. It hadn’t been broken into, there wasn’t a sign of struggle...”

“We’ll find her, Oliver,” Diggle hoped that he sounded more confident than he felt.

Oliver called Lance and briefed him, “Oh, and Lance? Get me surveillance from that bus station. If we can find out which bus she got on, we can use the traffic cameras to find out where she got off.”

“I'll do my best. And I’ve just talked to Smith’s Bar. They’re sending me over their surveillance footage right now. They didn’t ask for a warrant.”

Oliver hung up the phone. It was the best news he’d gotten all day.

Once again, the computer beeped, and, once again, he and Diggle started watching security footage.

Finally, twenty minutes later, Diggle pointed to the screen, “There she is.”

Oliver froze, his heart pounding in his ears. Felicity was there. She had been to Smith’s, just like they had seen in the traffic cameras. It took all of his effort not to lift his finger to the monitor and trace her face. What was wrong with him? 

He slowed the frames down and watched as she walked to her car. She reached for the handle of her car, but then stopped and looked around. 

He perked up, sitting straighter in his seat. 

She turned, smiled, and said a few words to a man he realized was Richard, who was watching her from the doorway with a smile on his face. When she waved, he quickly got into his car and left.

Oliver didn’t like the look that Richard was giving her. Had it been more of a date than Felicity had made it seem yesterday? He shook his head. That wasn’t important right now. Why was he so selfish? And why was he having those thoughts to begin with?

She got into her car, and Oliver groaned. There was nothing to help them on this tape. Right when he was about to turn off the video, she got back out of her car and took something off of her windshield. 

She frowned and looked around the parking lot. She read the note once more, and then reached into her purse and grabbed her phone. Then, she did something really strange. She’d shoved her phone into her shirt, tucking it into her bra just beneath her armpit. She looked scared. She got back into her car and drove away.

Oliver paused and rewound, watching the same few seconds again and again, “What was on that note?”

He rewound the video and zoomed in as much as possible, but it only pixellated everything. He couldn’t see what it said, no matter how much he tried to enhance it.

“Ok, Felicity gets a note,” Diggle was already trying to piece things together. “For whatever reason, the note scares her, right? She tries to hide her phone, maybe because she knows that she’s going to be in danger. She’s hoping that the phone will help lead us to her.”

“But it doesn’t,” Oliver frowns, “Someone must have found the phone on her before we could trace it and smashed it.”

Diggle ignored him and continued, “She gets in her car and drives to the bus station. From there, it seems like she got on a bus. To somewhere. The real question is why would she not call us so that we could help her?”

“The note,” Oliver supplied. “Whoever it was that took her is smart. They didn’t have to take her themselves if they had the right leverage. They could make her come to them and be silent about it.”

“What could a note possibly say to make her walk into a trap?” Diggle was skeptical.

“It has to do with Arrow,” Oliver’s face darkened. He knew it all along. This was his fault. It was always going to come back to him. “She was trying to protect us. It’s the only explanation.”

“But if that was the case, I still don’t get why wouldn’t she call us before she left,” Diggle didn’t like what he was seeing. He had never seen Oliver look so defeated. 

“There wasn’t a note at her car,” Oliver was staring into space, not listening to Diggle. “I would have noticed it. I looked everywhere.”

They brainstormed as much as they possibly could, but they couldn’t think of anything else that was helpful from the video. Oliver was sure that Felicity had done things to help them. Why couldn’t he see what he needed to see?

“It’s almost 9, Oliver,” Diggle said finally. “You should be going to the office.”

“I can’t--” Oliver started.

Diggle interrupted him, “Felicity is already missing, and Lance knows about it. If we don’t find her before then, he’s going to file a missing persons report. As soon as he does, the cops are going to start investigating. It’s going to be extremely suspicious if Felicity’s boss is absent from work the day after she went missing. Lance already has a vendetta against you. You would become a suspect, and they will watch your every move. If you get arrested, you’re not going to be able to help her.”

Oliver’s eyes bore a hole into Diggle before he responded, “Fine. But if we get anything else from Lance today, anything at all, I am leaving. Immediately.”

“Deal,” Diggle stood. “I’ll stay here and keep our programs running. I’ll try to find a way to track all of the buses and their stops without us having to know exactly which bus Felicity was on.”

“If you find anything--”

“I’ll call you. I promise.”

Oliver took a shower and changed into a suit. When he thought that Diggle was engrossed enough in his work, he packed his bow, quiver, arrows and hood into a duffle bag. He left with one last look at Diggle working on the computer. He knew Diggle was just as worried about her as he was, but Oliver felt personally responsible for it and for how long it had been since she’d disappeared. If it was him missing, Felicity would be working nonstop to find him. Since she had been gone, all he had done was wait for video footage and look into dead ends. He hadn’t been able to help her at all, and he still felt just as far from answers as he had when he first realized that she was missing. It was time for him to start being more proactive and take action. He was done waiting, and he hated himself for waiting to begin with. 

The day dragged by. He felt so selfish sitting at his desk and acting like nothing was wrong. He barely heard a word anyone was saying in his morning meetings. He should be helping Diggle and doing everything in his power to find her. Instead, he was hiding behind his desk. His skin crawled. Was this how he treated people he cared about? He tried to remember Diggle’s reasons for him being at work, but they were harder to remember each time he dragged up the memory. Nothing was a good enough reason for him to leave her waiting.

Just before lunch, Richard from IT came up to his office. Oliver motioned for him to come inside.

“We’ve been working on your computer, but I’m not sure it’s going to be salvageable,” Richard, Oliver noticed, was looking to the left of him instead of into his eyes like he had done yesterday. 

“That’s fine, Richard,” Oliver nodded, suddenly angry for the mundane nature of everything. He wasn’t helping her like he needed to be. That was all that mattered, not some stupid computer. He felt himself squeezing his pen a little too tightly and set his jaw to reset. “Thanks for letting me know. This computer has been working great.”

“Is there anything in particular you need off of it? Before we get rid of it, I mean.”

Oliver shook his head absently, “No, that’s ok. I had everything important backed up.”

“Felicity’s not here again today,” Richard said, now looking directly at Oliver.

“No,” Oliver said simply. “She’s not.”

“Do you, uh, do you know where she is?” Richard seemed to shift, but Oliver knew it was out of concern for his colleague.

“She’ll be back soon,” Oliver almost growled. He said the lie to reassure himself more than to reassure Richard. She had to come back soon.

Richard frowned at this, Oliver noticed. Then again, he had just growled at the guy.

Richard nodded, “Ok. Great.” He shifted awkwardly on his feet again, “If you need us, you have the number.”

Oliver turned his attention back to his computer screen. He’d checked the bus company’s timetable so much that he had it memorized. This was the best way to get to Felicity, not by waiting for Lance and the police, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to make Diggle understand that. Diggle wouldn’t want him to take the extra risk, but Oliver knew he had to do it. His time in the army had made him a great fighter and an even better strategan, but it had also made him rely on official channels too much. Oliver, by nature, rejected them. 

It had saved his life more times than he could count, and he wasn’t about to stop now that Felicity was in danger.

Just after lunch, when he knew that no buses were scheduled to leave the company’s hub and most employees were at lunch, Oliver left work with his duffle bag in hand to go to the bus company’s headquarters. Diggle wouldn’t like the risk, but he hoped he would mitigate it by cutting down on the number of people that would be there.

He was in hooded disguise, standing above a cowering city bus security employee in less than thirty minutes. Oliver raised his bow, pointing it at the man. His voice sounded foreign to him, angrier and colder than he had meant it to, “Put all of your security footage from every bus stop last night onto a flash drive and hand it over.”

The footage was downloaded and in his pocket just as someone pulled a panic alarm. Oliver turned, fired an arrow into the lights above him to cut the power to the room, and then disappeared.

Diggle was waiting for him when he went back to Verdant. He stood in the entryway to the club, his arms crossed and a sour look on his face, “Broad daylight, Oliver? You’re all over the police scanner.”

Oliver fixed him with a glare, “I can’t wait around anymore. It’s been too long already.”

“Being reckless isn’t--”

“Being reckless is the only thing getting us results right now,” Oliver snapped. He clenched his jaw, restraining his temper. He threw the flash drive to Diggle, “Get this loaded onto the computer, and let’s figure out which bus she got on. The longer we wait, the more likely we are to lose her.”

His stomach fluttered. He couldn’t lose her. 

Diggle put a hand on his shoulder, “I want to find her just as badly as you do, but getting arrested is not going to help save her. We’ll get her, Oliver.”

Oliver wished that he could believe him.

They already knew what time Felicity had entered the bus station, so it didn’t take long to find her on the surveillance footage. She boarded Bus 23. 

Backtracking, they pulled up the footage from traffic cameras and hoped that she wouldn’t go further than the city’s system. Diggle pulled up the bus’s schedule. They knew exactly when and where the bus was supposed to be, so the traffic cameras were easier than earlier in the day.

They were at one of the last few stops when Lance called his phone.

Oliver turned away from the computer while Diggle continued the search, “Detective.”

“I hear you got your bus station footage,” Lance’s tone was disproving.

“I did what I had to do.”

“We had someone come in this afternoon and report an abduction. The witness described someone matching Felicity’s description approaching a man in a car. They said that when she got close to him, they argued for a minute, and then he stuck something into her and she collapsed. Then, he pushed her into the car and took off.”

“Why did they take so long to come forward?!” Oliver snapped. He was livid. Felicity had collapsed? He clenched his fist. 

Lance’s voice was low, “It was in the Glades. People are afraid, and they don’t know who to trust. We’re lucky it was reported at all.”

“Is that all?” Oliver bit out.

“No. We got a license plate from the witness. The car belongs to an IT guy that works at Queen Consolidated -- Richard Payne. My guys are working on getting a warrant right now, but we still have to find a judge who will sign it, so it could be a while.” 

Lance’s voice paused before he continued, like he was debating something, “That’s going to take too much time. I wish I could come with you, but I’m the lead on this case. I have to be here when the warrant comes in. 455 North Hampton Dr, Apartment D.”

The line went dead.

Oliver felt sick, his head was spinning. Richard Payne in IT? The same guy had been in his office two times in the last two days? Oliver had even shaken his hand. They’d discussed Felicity. All of this time had gone by, and the person who had taken her had been in front of him all along. His head felt heavy, and he was ready to explode. He’d missed everything. He’d spoken to Richard only a few hours ago. He would give anything to be back in his office with him now, to make him pay for what he had done. He’d force Felicity’s location from him in seconds flat. He had never wanted to kill someone so badly in his life.

He turned towards Diggle, barely managing to disguise his thoughts, “We have a perp and his home address.”

Oliver quickly explained what Lance had told him while he changed into the hood. He felt electric and anxious, and he realized that the calm that usually settled over him just before a mission wasn’t coming. It wasn’t enough that they knew who had taken her. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until Felicity was safe in his arms. He grabbed his bow and his quiver of arrows and turned to Diggle, “You need to stay here. Monitor the police radios, and let me know if you hear them coming.”

“Wait,” Diggle grabbed his arm. “We need a plan. You’re going to get yourself killed if you just run in there.”

Oliver closed his eyes and fought to slow his mind. He wasn’t going to wait, but Diggle was right about one thing. He needed to think straight and get his mind together. He looked back at Diggle, “What do you suggest? It’s been two days. If I wait, she could be killed. If she isn’t dead already.”

The words cut him. He’d been that close to her abductor and hadn’t suspected anything. He would never forgive himself.

“Fine,” Diggle conceded. Oliver could see that Diggle wasn’t happy with him, but he could also see that he wouldn’t prevent him from trying to save Felicity. “Keep your com on.”

Oliver put his earpiece in place and left, opting for his motorcycle so that he could take back alleys if necessary. The apartment was frustratingly close to Verdant, and it took less than ten minutes for him to get there. He entered the building through the back service door. Diggle was in his ear, detailing the blueprints of the building. It was in the basement, limiting his ways into and out of the apartment. He took a defunct emergency stairwell downwards, two at a time, and was quickly in front of the main entrance to Payne’s apartment.

He knew that he should try to find another way into the apartment, but every fiber of his being wanted to face Payne head on. He wanted to him to pay for what he had done, and he wanted to be the one to collect. Moreover, he wanted Payne to know that he was the one who took Felicity away from this place.

He took a look up and down the hallway to make sure no one else was around and kicked the door open. He was instantly in the ready position, an arrow notched, waiting for Richard to come at him. It didn’t happen.

He whispered to Diggle, “I don’t think he’s home.”

The back of his neck prickled, and he had the overwhelming feeling that he was being watched. He stepped further into the room, a run down kitchen, and looked to the right. Familiar eyes stared back at him.

Hundreds of pictures of Felicity covered the walls. Her going shopping. Felicity at her old desk in the IT department. Felicity sleeping, the picture taken through her apartment window. Felicity walking into QC. Felicity walking home from the grocery store. Felicity on a date with a man Oliver didn’t know. Felicity, Felicity, Felicity. Pictures of her from before Oliver had even met her for the first time and pictures of her that looked like they had been taken from her college’s online database. She was everywhere, but, he noted with dread, not physically in the room.

“He was stalking her,” he said to Diggle under his breath. He knew from the tone of voice that Diggle swore, but Oliver didn’t hear the words. His mind was already spinning, imagining thousands of horrors that she could have faced for the last two days. He was starting to lose the stoic emotional control that he had felt while she had been missing. How could he not have noticed someone stalking a person he spent majority of his time with? He had let his guard drop too much since he had come home from the island. This was his fault for not noticing. All of her suffering was because of him.

He had been wrong and blind about too many things. This was never about him or Arrow. It was all about her and some coward’s sick obsession with her. A coward whom Oliver had been in the same room with, twice, in the time that Felicity had been here. He had failed to protect her. He held his bow tighter.

The silence in the apartment was deafening. Years of danger had trained Oliver to trust silence less than he trusted noise. It was disorienting, and it also cut out his element of surprise when on the attack. Hundreds of pairs of Felicity’s eyes watched him as he moved around the room. Suddenly, the hand holding his bow wouldn’t stop shaking. Everywhere he looked, her eyes reminded him of his failure to protect her.

He reeled under it, trying hard to regain his composure, but he wasn’t able to calm himself down. Details of his surroundings escaped him, no matter how hard he tried to absorb them. His mind was panicking. All he could think about was Felicity, and how Payne had completely and utterly destroyed her private life for years, only to eventually kidnap her. Was she even alive? Why couldn’t he think straight? Focus, Oliver, he told himself. He had dealt with death and betrayal and danger so many times in his life, why couldn’t he cope with this? But he knew the answer as soon as he asked himself. He had felt an uncontrollable, unexplainable urge to protect her since she started working hand-in-hand with he and Diggle. He cared about her, despite his efforts not to. He had never wanted Felicity to face the same dangers he did. And he had failed her in a way that he had never imagined, even in his nightmares. 

“Check the other rooms,” Diggle’s voice sounded gentle in his ear. Had Oliver’s breathing sped up and tipped him off? He gritted his teeth, trying harder to focus. He needed to regain control of his emotions so that he could think straight. He placed one foot in front of the other, still treading lightly. Just in case.

The kitchen led to a small bedroom, but there was no living room and no other extra rooms. Felicity was nowhere to be found in either. He boiled in frustration, “Two rooms, Digg. Kitchen, bedroom. No Felicity.”

He roared loudly in frustration. What did it mean if she wasn’t here? Had Payne gotten rid of her? Had they been grasping at straws to believe that she was alive, just like Oliver had feared? It couldn’t be true. He tried to get ahold of himself and listen to what Diggle was saying into his ear, but he couldn’t. The words were too far away, and he couldn’t concentrate on anything except her absence. The harder he tried to grasp at sanity, the more he was losing it.

He collapsed to his knees with a groan, the weight of guilt and grief overpowering him. Where was she? Her needed her. She couldn’t be gone.

“QUEEN!” He jumped back to his feet at his name being screamed, bow drawn and ready to fight. His eyes darted around the room before he realized that the name had come out of his earpiece. He let the bow fall to his side.

He set his jaw, breathing deeply. He couldn’t let his voice betray his panic. He couldn’t let Diggle know how close he had come to losing it entirely. 

“What is it?”

“There’s another room in the apartment.”

“What?” His scanned the room, again, and his heart started to pick up speed. “That’s not possible. There’s only two.”

“It’s there. I can see it on the blueprints. Look for a door or something by the fridge in the kitchen. It’s going to be ok,” Diggle’s voice was reassuring, but urgent and stern. Maybe Oliver hadn’t done such a good job of disguising his emotions as he thought. “There should be another room. You have to find it. She could be there. This could be it.”

This could be it. The words sunk in and reverberated in his skull. His vision tunneled as he backtracked to the kitchen. Was it possible that, after all this time, he was only a wall away from Felicity?

His hands steadied, and his mind locked on to the mission at hand. Find the door. It had to be there. 

He pushed on the walls on either side of the fridge, but nothing gave. He groaned, louder than he had intended, “It’s not here, Digg!”

“It’s there,” Diggle’s confident, urgent voice came through. “You have to hurry, Oliver. The cops just got their warrant, and they're on their way. If you can’t find a way in, make one!”

Felicity was somewhere on the other side of that wall. She had to be, because any alternative was unthinkable. He couldn’t leave her alone for another minute, not when he had already done it for days.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins. Oliver went to the side of the fridge, gripping the top with both hands, and pulled with all his might. The fridge crashed to the ground. There was no hole behind it like he had hoped, but he could see a stream of light pouring through where the fridge falling had poked a small hole in the thin layer of sheetrock. For once, Oliver was thankful for shoddy construction in the Glades.

He didn’t think, didn’t question, and threw himself as hard as he could into the wall repeatedly. He hit it again and again. Finally, he fell through the wall. 

When he got his bearings, he looked up, and into the very real eyes of Felicity Smoak. She was there. In an apartment building not three miles from Verdant, she’d been held captive for two days because of him.

He released a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Her usually smooth, blonde hair was matted and strewn about her face. It fell in front of her eyes in a way that she normally would have never allowed. Her dazed eyes, behind strands of hair, were staring at the ground. She didn’t even seem to register his presence, or the fact that Oliver had just burst in through the wall in front of her. Was she drugged, or…? She wasn’t moving.

Her body was limp against its restraints. She was shackled to the wall at the wrists and ankles. Oliver could see blood caking where the metal had cut into her flesh from her not supporting her own weight, but he could also see her breathing steadily. She was alive. His heart skipped, and he almost collapsed to the floor in relief.

"Felicity?" He rushed forwards, a calm coming over him. His hands cupped her face gently, trying to see if she would notice him, “Felicity?”

She didn’t respond. She was hurt, drugged and he didn’t know what else had happened to her, but she was alive. She was here, and he wasn’t lost anymore.

“She’s here, John. Alive, but drugged,” he reported dutifully.

“Get her out,” Diggle’s voice was low. Oliver couldn’t tell if it was out of relief, exhaustion or anger. 

Oliver looked around for something to break the locks with without hurting Felicity. The apartment door creaked.

Diggle heard the door, too, and cursed again in his ear, “It’s not the cops. Not yet, at least.”

Oliver found himself torn between staying by Felicity’s side and taking the most strategic position in the room. He only had a second to decide. Hating himself for abandoning her, he moved away from her and just inside the hole he had smashed into the wall. He grimaced when he found himself crouched beside a human-sized cage with strands of golden blonde hair in it.

Had she been in that cage? She was shackled to the wall. What else had Payne done to her? The possibilities were zooming through his mind, tormenting him and tearing at his heart. His blood started to boil. How could anyone have treated her like this?

Oliver couldn’t hear Diggle’s words in his earpiece anymore. He couldn’t hear anything, except the blood rushing in his ears, and he couldn’t feel anything except rage building in his bones. Hell hath no fury like the Arrow after someone he loved being hurt. He realized in that moment that he more than cared for her, he loved her. How could he not?

A bewildered Payne stepped through the hole in the wall holding a baseball bat out in front of him. Oliver watched as the man took a step towards Felicity, but when he went to take another step, Oliver couldn't wait any longer. He didn’t want him to touch her. He stepped out from his hiding place, leaving his bow on the ground. Whatever happened, he wanted it to be settled with his bare hands. “Don’t. Touch. Her.”

Payne whirled around, already swinging the bat. Oliver didn’t see it in time, too distracted watching Felicity, and the bat slammed into his jaw. Payne had swung almost hesitantly and didn’t have enough strength for it to break his jaw, but it still hurt enough for Oliver to double over for a few seconds. 

He grabbed Payne with a roar, flipping him hard onto his back with all of his strength. Payne worked in IT, had probably never stepped foot into a gym, and he never stood a chance. Oliver lifted him off the ground, over his head, and threw him into the wall in front of him. Payne crumpled to the floor, and Oliver knew that he wouldn’t get up. 

Payne couldn’t support himself, but he was still conscious. He looked at Oliver with a mixture of fear and hatred in his eyes, “Leave us alone! I’m protecting her from you!”

"Don't listen to him," he thought he vaguely heard Diggle's voice in his ear, but he wasn’t sure. His head was still swimming in rage.

Oliver had started towards him, but stopped mid-step at the man’s words. He spoke through gritted teeth, not even bothering with the voice disguiser. His hatred alone was enough of a disguise, “What did you just say?”

Payne screamed, “I only wanted to protect her!”

“I would never hurt her. I would never do this,” Oliver sneered, looking pointedly around the room at the cage and a ratty cot that he had just noticed in the corner. He saw a handless door to the left of the hole that he’d made. His eyes kept darting from Felicity to Payne, not wanting to let her out of his sight but not wanting to let Payne slip away, either. He wanted to run to her side so badly, but he couldn’t risk her getting hurt more than she already was.

“You put her in danger every night you have her help you be a vigilante, Mr. Queen,” Payne spit, small droplets of blood scattering across the floor with every word. “And she’ll be just another casualty in your stupid little war. I couldn’t let that happen. Not to her. Not to my Felicity. I need to keep her safe.”

Oliver set his jaw, trying to mask the effect that Payne’s words had on him. They’d cut to his core, weakening him at the knees, because Payne was saying everything that Oliver had always thought. Felicity was here because of him. The fact that her stalker had abducted her months after she found out about Arrow wasn’t a coincidence. Payne had figured out who Oliver was, and it had put Felicity in danger. 

The rage he felt had been threatening to consume him since he had heard Payne enter the apartment and, when he registered that Payne had called her ‘my Felicity,’ Oliver snapped and let it happen.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t hear or see anything other than red. He was on top of the man, punching him again and again and again, well past the point when he knew that he was dead. He knew he was screaming in fury but he didn’t know when he had started, and he couldn’t hear anything that Diggle was screaming in his ear, nothing at all, because nothing existed outside of the fact that he had to destroy this man, had to destroy everything that he had just said to Oliver, had to destroy any idea that Felicity was his, had to destroy him for what he had done to Felicity. He punched and punched and punched, and blood was splattering onto him from the dead man’s face until the face barely resembled a face at all. It wasn’t until approaching police sirens broke into his rage-induced stupor that he staggered away from the body, his throat sore from exertion.

With one last look at what used to be Richard Payne, Oliver reached into his quiver, pulled out an arrow, and slammed it straight into the chest of the corpse. It would serve as a warning to anyone who would dare come near her again. From then on, the world would know she was protected, and it would know the price of threatening her.

He had started towards Felicity, wanting to go take care of her, when he heard the cops approaching the front door. There was no time to both free her and make an escape. He could stay and be captured, but at least she wouldn’t be alone. But, in doing so, he wouldn’t be able to be there for her in the future. He was defeated, torn between the two options. He could hear the cops banging on the door.

“RUN, OLIVER!” Diggle screamed into his ear, breaking his paralysis.

Oliver ran. He took one last look at Felicity - her dazed eyes seemed like they were starting to focus a little bit more, and her head started to turn towards him - and fled backwards through the hole in the wall. He smashed into the bedroom, rolling across the bed and leapt up onto the dresser just as the cops were breaking down the door. Smashing out the window, he ran as hard as he could out into the night. 

He tried to justify it, telling himself that the cops would be able to get her better medical help than he would because they would take her to a hospital. He told himself that they would find her, and she would be safe within seconds. It didn’t work.

Guilt and grief quickly replaced his ebbing anger. When he reached his motorcycle, he found himself choking down sobs.

“Don’t--,” Diggle started to say something, but Oliver ripped his earpiece out and smashed it under his boot as soon as he heard the voice. Oliver didn’t want to hear it, didn’t even know if he could hear it.

Nothing he could say right now could possibly make things any better. He could barely face himself right now, let alone Diggle. He had failed her. He’d left her alone and in chains. 

He quickly scaled a building and ran over rooftop after rooftop until he was across the street from Payne’s apartment. Police cars, firetrucks, and ambulances lit up the road with their lights. A crowd had formed, but the police had barricaded the road so that they had to stand back a few hundred yards. 

Oliver wished that it had been a few hundred yards more.

He waited for 10 minutes, anxiously watching the activity below him, before they brought her out on a stretcher. He could see a flash of her golden blonde hair underneath blankets, and was thankful when he saw that cops were surrounding her enough so that any reporters couldn’t get a shot of who she was.

Lance was with her every step of the way. Oliver’s jaw unclenched, thankful for the friend that he’d found in Detective Lance. He never thought that he would be this close to Laurel’s dad. He shook his head at the thought. He wasn’t close to him. Arrow was. 

He felt a twinge of jealousy when he realized that Lance was holding her hand. He should be down there doing that for her and comforting her. Instead, he was up on this roof hiding like a coward. He’d left her. Once again, he wasn’t there for someone he loved when they needed them most. He always knew it would be this way. It was why he had tried so hard to not get close to her. He’d failed at that, too.

When she was loaded into the ambulance, Oliver turned and left.


	4. Chapter 4

Oliver sped from The Glades on his bike, getting away from the city as fast as he possibly could. 

He knew that he should be going to meet Diggle and spend the night taking care of Felicity. He wanted it so badly, too. But he couldn’t allow himself. He’d broken a rule and fallen in love with someone that he had told himself was off limits. When had that even happened? He couldn’t remember consciously falling in love, had only just become aware of it, but he knew that the feelings hadn’t come out of nowhere. Why hadn’t he noticed before?

She had gotten hurt because of him. Just like the others before her. Everyone Oliver cared about ended up hurt or dead. By inviting her into his life, he had ensured the same fate for her. He needed to keep his distance from now on. He wouldn’t put her in that kind of danger. Not her.

Oliver Queen showing up to the hospital in the middle of her arrival would raise more questions than Felicity would want. She was a very private person, and that privacy had just been absolutely shattered by a trusted co-worker. He didn’t want to be the cause of her landing in gossip magazines and blogs on top of everything else.

Later tonight, possibly, he could go. There wouldn’t be as many eyes in the hospital that late, so he could probably sneak in unnoticed. He could use the time until then to regain control and stifle any romantic feelings he had for her.

He was also afraid to go and see what he had done to her. He didn’t know if he could face hearing or seeing the extent of the injuries that he had caused. He needed to go get his head right before that happened or else he wouldn’t be able to fake his feelings at all.

He couldn’t go back to face Diggle and he definitely couldn’t go to the hospital, so he started driving to the only place that he had left to go - home.

Thea wouldn’t be there. She practically lived with Roy these days because she hated how empty the house was. He’d go through his bedroom window, and no one would be any wiser. 

He urged his bike to go faster, streaking through the woods that peppered the area between the city and Queen Manor. The guilt lay heavy across his shoulders, and he couldn’t escape it no matter how fast he drove. His heart was back in that ambulance.

He pulled the motorcycle next to the garage and ran around the manor to the spot just beneath his window. Ignoring the dull pain in his arm, he scaled the wall and was through his bedroom window in seconds. No one could have seen him in the darkness. He crossed his room to make sure his door was locked and then immediately went into the bathroom.

He talked himself through every task that he performed so that he could keep his mind occupied and wouldn’t have to think about anything that had happened. It was one of the first tricks he had taught himself when he had first been on the island. Distract with the mundane so you don’t have to think about the pain.

His plan failed when he looked at himself in the mirror.

His hands, jacket, face and hood were splattered with blood. His face was smeared with the remnants of his green mask. Was it with sweat, blood, tears, or all of the above? The gashes on his knuckles, evidence of his beating of Payne, had dripped blood down his hands and fingers. He hadn’t noticed that before. His jaw was sore and swollen, and there was a large, ugly bruise already forming on the side of his face. Almost his entire left upper arm, shoulder, and collarbone were bruised and battered from trying to get through the apartment wall. He couldn’t feel the pain quite yet, but he knew that he would soon. 

All of his injuries and everything that he had done today, it was worth it for Felicity. He had no regrets.

His eyes, reflecting back at him, were hard. He was a man on edge, and the guilt, anger, and sadness were all eating away at him. This is what a failure looked like. 

How could he have left her there? Why had it taken them so long to find her? What happened to her while she was there? What was happening to her now?

He shook his head. He would have the rest of his life to regret his decisions. Right now, he needed to shower and hide all traces of Arrow. Again, he started talking himself through every task he completed to distract himself.

He removed his clothes faster than he should have, wincing in pain when his hand accidentally bumped his jaw and when his collarbone groaned in protest. He placed them in a trash bag and hid them beneath his bed, in a locked box with his bow and quiver.

He adjusted the temperature so that the water was as hot as it would go, letting the entire shower become filled with steam before he stepped inside. He flinched when it poured against the cuts on his knuckles, and he clenched his fists at his sides. He stood still, watching the dirt and blood start to pour down the drain until he acclimated to the pain in his cuts. Carefully, using his right arm only, he soaped his body. He washed under his fingernails, paid close attention to the spots of dried blood on his hands, and scrubbed at every inch of his skin.

The adrenaline that had flooded him for the past hour was quickly leaving his system. His arm and shoulder felt worse than they had before, but it was still bearable. His collarbone had started to throb. He tried to lift his arm above his head, grunting at the pain, but couldn’t move it higher than his chest. It was definitely broken. He was thankful that his adrenaline had kept it from hurting while he had been in that room with Felicity. He tried to keep his arm as still as possible and against his chest, and he stood under the hot water for a long time, until it started to run cold. 

He got out of the shower and inspected himself in the mirror again to make sure that he’d gotten everything. The blood was gone, but his dead eyes remained. His shoulder and arm were beginning to form a dark purple bruise. His jaw was still swollen, but at least it didn’t seem any bigger than it had been before the shower.

He gritted his teeth, willing himself to close his emotions off. 

He wouldn’t be able to hide his jaw, but he’d at least be able to hide the bruising on his arm. He did need a sling, though, if he was going to heal fast enough.

Oliver dressed slowly, taking care this time to not bump any of his bruises or broken bones. He put on a long sleeve black shirt and grey sweatpants, just like he would have on any normal night. Except nothing about this night was normal. Realizing that he had feelings for her was life shattering, and he didn’t know if he would ever be able to come back from it. Would he be able to control it around her, so that neither she nor Diggle would notice?

Stop, he told himself, keep your head straight. You can’t love her. You don’t.

Carefully, he dug his first aid supplies out from underneath his sink. He removed the sling and adjusted it on himself, making sure that his arm was held tightly against his body. With the bruises covered by the shirt, he looked like he had been in a fight. It would be a good cover story, something that no one would be surprised by.

Pouring himself a scotch, he settled at his desk and got on the phone immediately. While he talked to Dr. Lamb, he surfed the internet to see what was being reported so far. 

“My secretary, Felicity Smoak, was or will be admitted to Starling City tonight. Will you be there and take her case?”

He frowned, looking at the computer screen. There wasn’t anything yet, not even a report of Arrow being there. Had Lance ordered a media blackout for now? How long until it leaked? At least she would have a few hours of peace.

“Thank you, Dr. Lamb,” he relaxed slightly, knowing that his family’s doctor would be taking care of her. “Also, if she isn’t there yet, please put her into the best available private room. Treat her like you would if she were a Queen.” He paused, “Yes, absolutely. Thanks, Dr. Lamb.”

When he hung up, his collarbone was throbbing worse than ever. He finished the scotch, hoping that it would help with the pain.

He made another call to the private security company that they always worked with to hire a bodyguard to stand by Felicity’s hospital room and another to watch for reporters in the lobby. Finally, he got up from the desk and lay across his bed, not even bothering to get under the covers. He was too sore and too mentally exhausted.

He just needed to wait a few hours - two, at most - for things to die down, and he would go to the hospital. The scotch took over as soon as his head hit the pillow, and he fell asleep.

It was maybe an hour before he was shaken awake by urgent hands. He blearily muttered in his sleep, “Felicity?”

“Wake up, stupid!”

He sat up immediately, on red alert. “Thea?”

Thea looked angry with him, “Where were you earlier tonight? And what is wrong with your face? What is with that sling? Are you ok?” She ran her hands down her face. “Do you know how worried I was when Diggle just called me to tell me that you were missing? I run a nightclub, you know, customers are at my place of business, I haven’t had any sleep yet, and the last thing I want to be doing is tracking my brother through the city. What were you thinking ditching him? Do you know how many people have it out for us these days?”

“Whoa, slow down, Speedy,” Oliver braced himself. He rarely saw Thea get this upset, and it hurt that he had caused it.

She had tears in her eyes, “You can’t keep doing this to me, Ollie. It’s not fair. I’ve already lost one parent, possibly two, and you’re all I have left.” She sat down on his bed next to him. “I was so worried that you could be---”

“I’m here,” he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug. He released her, staring into her eyes so that she knew he was serious, “I’m not going anywhere. And you are not going to lose me.”

He felt so guilty. He hadn’t anticipated Diggle calling Thea, but it didn’t surprise him, either. 

“What happened to you?” She crossed her arms. She was looking at him like he was stranger. It tore his heart up more than it already was.

“I went to see a girl,” he started, “but I didn’t realize that she had a boyfriend. He uh… showed up in the middle… of things.”

Thea rolled her eyes, “Will you grow up already, Ollie?” 

He raised his eyebrows. She was disappointed in him, he could tell, and it made it even worse.

“Do you know how irresponsible that is? You’re in charge of our company while mom’s gone. You can’t go out, no body guard, screwing whoever walks past you anymore.”

“You’re right,” He nodded. He could see the surprised, but wary look in her eye. “I’m sorry. I really am. The last thing I want is for you to worry about me.”

“I always worry about you,” Thea bit her lip, looking at him with a strange expression.

“Isn’t that my line as the big brother?” He grinned sheepishly at her, trying to change the mood and shift the conversation away from him.

She laughed and punched his good arm lightly, but she was still watching him with a strange expression. Oliver tried to smile more to reassure her, but it didn’t work.

She touched his jaw lightly, and he held back the wince, “Are you ok? Should we go to the hospital?”

“I already went,” he lied. “The jaw is just bruised, and they can’t do anything for the broken collar bone except have me keep it in a sling for a week or two.”

Her jaw dropped, “He BROKE your collar bone?!”

“It’s not a big deal. Honestly.” It really wasn’t. He’d had worse, felt worse. The pain he felt now was nothing compared to the guilt and anger that he was feeling otherwise. It didn’t even come close to his feelings of failure.

“You’ve gotten into a lot of accidents since you came back,” Thea observed, causing Oliver to freeze for an instant. When he looked at her, he could see she wasn’t going to press it. He relaxed.

“I guess I just forgot how dangerous the city can be,” he shrugged with a smile. “I’m still adjusting.”

Thea laughed, “Yeah, dangerous compared to the wild, deserted island that you were on for five whole years.”

“Exactly,” Oliver grinned.

His grin fell when he remembered what danger the city had held earlier tonight. Felicity in chains. 

He had been telling Thea the truth. The island had been nothing compared to what he faced in this city. He hadn’t been prepared for the emotional entanglement. Ever since the island, one of the most important things he had to do was keep his distance from his loved ones because he would only endanger them with his mission. He had been prepared for it mentally, but he hadn’t prepared for it emotionally. He hadn’t been able to do it. He’d known as soon as he saw Thea on the stairwell the first morning that he’d been home that it would be a struggle, but he hadn’t understood how hard it would be or how much he would hurt them in the process.

And he hadn’t anticipated adding loved ones to the mix - Diggle, and now Felicity. The harder he tried to close himself off, the more difficult it became. 

“What’s wrong?” Thea had noticed the shift in him.

He looked up at her, shrugging, “Nothing.”

She shook her head, “No. Not nothing. I’m tired of you shutting me out.” She closed her hand over his, “Maybe I can help?”

“It’s complicated,” he insisted.

She was still watching him expectantly, “I like a challenge, and I’m a great listener.”

Sometimes, he hated how similar they were. He knew that she wouldn’t give it up because he wouldn’t, either. He sighed, conceding. He’d hurt her enough already tonight, “I did something, and someone that I care about got hurt.”

“An apology goes a long way,” Thea spoke softly. “Have you tried that?”

“I don’t know if I should,” He admitted.

“If you care about them as much as you say you do, you should always apologize.”

“I’m afraid that I’ll get them hurt even more,” he admitted, his cheeks flushing. 

“That’s crazy,” Thea admonished him.

“It’s not,” he insisted. “Everyone I care about ends up getting hurt or dead - Dad, the Lances, Tommy… I don’t want to let myself care about them and have them wind up...”

She grabbed his hand, holding it tightly, and waited until he in her eyes to speak, “Everyone you care about is lucky. Because we have you. And you would do absolutely anything to keep us safe. But everyone gets hurt at some point in their life. You can’t save us all.”

He could hear how earnest she was, and he wanted to believe it so badly, but it wasn’t true. He hadn’t kept Felicity from getting hurt. Instead, knowing him had put her directly into danger.

“I wish you could see yourself the way your family and friends saw you,” Thea sighed again. 

He was silent. 

“Go to your friend. You’ll regret it if you don’t. And you need get in touch with Diggle,” Thea urged him. “He sounded like he had a lot going on when I spoke to him. Said a friend of his was in the hospital. He could probably use some good news.”

Oliver’s heart pinched again. He should have been at the hospital with Diggle all night, but his life prevented him from doing that. He hated it. He ducked his head, “I don’t have my phone. I uh… dropped it earlier tonight.” It was back in the Arrowcave still, probably, unless Diggle had brought it with him to the hospital.

She rolled her eyes and typed a message into her phone, “No wonder you didn’t answer my thousand phone calls. There. I texted him.”

“Thanks,” Oliver grimaced. Diggle was another thing that he hadn’t considered. He was probably furious with Olver, and he couldn’t blame him. He would be the same if Diggle had disappeared after a mission like that. “Can you actually text him again, and let him know that I’ll meet him there? I want to apologize.”

“It’s two in the morning,” Thea quirked an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged, and she typed the message.

He was scared to go see Felicity, but he needed to with every fiber of his being. He had to know that she was recovering ok. What if she had been hurt more than he’d initially thought?

“Hey,” Thea squeezed his hand again, “It’s going to be alright.”

“Yeah,” Oliver nodded and smiled at her, but it was forced. “Thanks for all of the advice, Speedy. When did you get so smart?”

“Years of practice,” she winked at him, getting to her feet. “I’m going to go to sleep. Promise you won’t disappear on us again, ok?”

“Ok,” he agreed. “I promise.”

She walked out of the room, and he got out of bed. Thea hadn’t changed the fact that he felt guilty or believed that it was his fault, but she had made him realize that he needed to go to the hospital, no matter how much his guilt was weighing on him.

He loved Felicity, even if he didn’t want to, and he needed to be there for her. He had been gone from her for too long, especially while she was hurt. He was dying to touch her hair, to hold her face in his hands, to see, for himself, that she was whole and alive and safe. He needed to know.

He shook his head, trying to get rid of those thoughts. What he needed was focus. He needed to be strong and not the lovesick, worried puppy that he had been for the last few hours. 

He looked into the mirror and gritted his teeth, willing himself to close his emotions off. He wasn’t going to be able to help Felicity if he was an emotional wreck. He had to be strong. He glared at himself and willed it to be true. He could see the walls starting to go back up, and in an instant Oliver’s eyes had warmed, reflecting nothing that he was feeling at all. This was the Oliver that the world was used to seeing so often, the one that his patrons at the club and the public knew. Oliver smiled weakly at his reflection, testing to see if it was still possible for him to do it convincingly, and put on a fresh suit and his sling.

He called the driver to take him. It was going to be all about appearances, now. He would have to be the concerned boss to the public, would have to convince Diggle that he was ok even though he was so far from it, would have to hide his feelings from Felicity, and would have to convince himself that his feelings for her didn’t exist.

The drive to the hospital was cruelly short. 

His jaw tightened and went inside the building, thankful that there weren’t a lot of people outside of the hospital. 

The receptionist looked up in surprise when Oliver approached her, “Mr. Queen! What can I help you with?”

“Can you tell me which room Felicity Smoak is in?” He asked, flashing her a wide smile. He made his words sound slurred, so it would seem like he was coming after a night of clubbing. If she leaked the story and the reporters wanted to run that he had made a late night visit to a hospitalized employee, he could at least pass it off as a spur of the moment, drunken decision. He hoped.

She punched in some keys, glancing up at Oliver occasionally. He pretended not to notice. He was drawing attention to Felicity and their connection by being here, he knew that, but he couldn’t stay away now. He had to see her. Not knowing if she was ok was driving him insane.

“Room 1266,” The nurse pointed them towards the elevator.

Outside of Felicity’s room, he felt his resolve slipping. She should be livid with him, and Diggle definitely would be. But she was right there, just feet away from him. He felt a rush, and he knew that he couldn’t stay away any longer. He had to see her. The few hours that had gone by since he’d last seen her were too long.

He nodded to the security guard outside of the door and knocked lightly as he entered the room, closing the door softly behind him.

She was sleeping. He didn’t know what he had been expecting. Oliver didn’t move, too busy staring at the thick bandages around her wrists and the light bruise on her cheek. She was so pale and looked so weak. He should have stopped that from happening.

Diggle was glaring at him. He pretended that he didn’t notice, feeling guiltier by the second. He fixed Diggle was a stare and nodded to him in greeting.

“Where the hell have you been?” Diggle rose from his chair, speaking in a soft whisper, and crossed to stand in front of Oliver. He blocked Oliver’s view of Felicity, but Oliver wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not.

“I’m sorry. It would have been suspicious for me to show up here with you. The cops would have suspected something,” The excuse ate at his heart, and he hated that he would let anything get between him seeing Felicity. He knew she wouldn’t have hesitated if it was him or Diggle in the hospital. He clenched his jaw, trying to control his emotions. He had to stay neutral, otherwise Diggle would see right through him. He didn’t want him to know how much he was struggling with this.

“That’s not a reason to cut off communication with me,” Diggle stood firm. “I didn’t know if you’d been arrested or if you were even--”

“I know,” he gritted out. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” 

“Yeah, I know it won’t.” Diggle sounded threatening.

Oliver nodded. Message received.

Diggle looked between him and Felicity, “She was pretty out of it when they brought her in. She’s hasn’t really been conscious. Payne had her on some kind of drug cocktail to keep her sedated. They’re still flushing it out of her system,” he gestured towards the IV she was hooked up to. 

“Does she know about--,” he paused. “Has she said what happened?”

“No, not yet. She’s been too out of it. They’ll be back in the morning.”

Oliver nodded. He wanted to be there with her when she gave a statement so that he could give her support, if needed. He knew better than anyone how painful reliving bad memories could be. 

Diggle must have seen the thoughts on his face. He placed a hand on Oliver’s shoulder, “She’ll be glad you’re here.”

He gave him a tight smile, and together they went to go sit in the seats by Felicity’s bed.

“You know, I’ve never been in a hospital room this nice before. Two whole chairs? We’re spoiled,” Diggle was smiling at Oliver, a laugh on his lips. 

“Was I that obvious?” Oliver shrugged, finally laughing for the first time in days. 

“Oh yeah,” Diggle laughed. “The whole staff was making a fuss when Felicity got here, getting this room together.”

“Did they know who had made the call?”

“I don’t think so. Your doctor is very discrete.”

“He’s on retainer for a reason,” Oliver nodded. “That, and he’s the best doctor in the city.”

“Wish we could use him more,” Diggle said, and they both broke out into laughter again.

He relaxed. This room, surrounded by friends, was where he belonged. Diggle and Felicity knew him better than anyone in his life. They stood by his side even when he didn’t believe anyone would. It felt good to be here with them.

The stopped laughing when Felicity started to shift. She woke up, blinking her eyes sleepily, and looked at them with a goofy smile on her face, “My boys.”

Diggle stepped forward first and gave her a hug, “We’re glad you’re ok.”

Oliver didn’t move, too busy staring at the bandages around her wrists. She was so pale and looked so weak. He should have stopped that from happening.

Felicity frowned at him and held her arms out more insistently, raising an eyebrow at him. He forced a smile and stood, stepping into her embrace.

She felt warm and welcoming, and he felt a catch in his throat. Just this morning, he’d doubted that he would ever get to see her again much less touch her. But here she was. He always knew how strong she was, but she never stopped surprising him. She was safe. She was finally safe. He had to stop himself from nuzzling his face into her neck, from smelling her hair, from taking her face in his hands and covering his lips with hers. Wait, what? 

He mentally shook himself. He had to get rid of all of those thoughts. She was in this hospital because of him, and she deserved so much better.

She whispered into his ear, “Thank you.” 

It was so earnest that he stepped back and pulled away from her arms, the one place he wanted to be, giving her a tight smile. He didn’t understand. How could she thank him for putting her into danger, for taking so long to save her, for leaving her when she had still needed him? 

It must be the drugs in her system. That was the only explanation. Her movements were clumsy and her eyes still a little glossy. He hated seeing her like this. He couldn’t wait for her to be herself.

“Stay?” Felicity asked, her eyes closing. He could tell she was already half asleep. His cheeks flushed when he realized that she was drearily reaching her hand towards him.

“Yes,” he immediately sat back down in the chair, moving it closer to her bed. She gave him a weak smile, and he could tell by her breathing pattern that she had fallen asleep.

His heart skipped, and he hesitantly lifted one of his hands to lay it over hers.

“What?”

Diggle was giving him a look. He rolled his eyes, “Nothing.”

“You look exhausted,” Oliver frowned. 

“Gee, thanks,” Diggle yawned. “You’re not looking too great yourself, you know.”

Oliver pointed to the closet, “There should be a cot or something in there. Sleep. I’ll wake you up if there’s any change.”

Diggle looked like he was going to object, but when he opened his mouth another yawn escaped.

Diggle set up the cot and was asleep within minutes. 

Oliver couldn’t stop thinking about the feeling of her hand beneath his. He didn’t know why he had done it. He had told himself that he wouldn’t do this. When she reached for him, though, he couldn’t stop himself. She had a power over him that she didn’t even know she had. The thought scared him. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. 

But he still couldn’t stop thinking about how her hand felt underneath his. Her skin was so warm and soft, completely the opposite of his calloused, scarred ones. He moved his hand slowly up her arm, just beneath the cut on her wrist. He could feel her pulse there, reassuring him with every second that she was ok. She was alive.

After a few minutes of constant reassurance, he moved his hand back down to hers. He didn’t know when he fell asleep.

“Oh my god!” 

Felicity’s alarmed voice woke him up. He ripped his hand away from hers and was on his feet instantly, scanning the room for a threat. He saw Diggle doing the same thing on the other side of her bed.

“Wait, what?” Diggle was doing a double take and looking between her and Oliver, a bemused expression on his face.

“Look at your jaw,” she groaned, staring at Oliver like he had been the one held captive for days. Her hands went to her mouth, “And your arm! You look horrible. I mean, your jaw looks horrible. You look great. As always. Of course you do. I love you in a suit,” She looked to Diggle, groaning, “Stop me while I’m behind, please.”

“It’s not that bad,” Oliver ignored her rambling. She did it with everyone, and he didn’t need to look further into the things that she said. He was glad that she was doing it, though. It meant that she was getting back to herself. The drugs must be wearing off. 

His hand went up unconsciously to his jaw. “We’re worried about you, not me. How are you doing?”

“I feel ok,” she said, her voice still weaker than it should be. “But I’m still...” she shivered.

He backed away from her bed as Diggle moved closer to hold her hand. The guilt that he had been suppressing so far came back full force, and he knew that he had to get out of the room before he fell apart altogether. He needed to regain control, “I’ll go get the doctor, now that you’re awake.”

She looked disappointed, “Can it wait? I want to talk...”

But he was already through the door. He called a nurse over and asked her to get the doctor. It was morning, now. He knew that he couldn’t wander very far without drawing a lot of attention to himself, so he paced up and down the hallway and tried to pull himself together until Dr. Lamb arrived. 

Oliver took a deep breath and followed Dr. Lamb into the room, but stayed close to the door. He couldn’t trust himself to keep his feelings about her hidden, especially if Lamb was bringing bad news.

Oliver could feel Felicity glaring at him while Dr. Lamb started going over her charts, but he purposely didn’t look at her. He did, however, notice Diggle giving him a knowing smile.

She didn’t have any broken bones, and none of the cuts on her wrists or ankles required stitches. All of her faculties were working perfectly. She was, unbelievably, fine. Tired and weak, but fine.

“She is very lucky,” Dr. Lamb concluded. 

Oliver didn’t think that was the word for it. 

“I’m going to remove your IV. The drugs will be out of your system by now. You’ll feel a little out of sorts for about a day, but that’s perfectly normal. I’m going to sign your release papers so that you can get out of the hospital today. There’s no need for you to rest here, so long as you promise to rest at home.”

She nodded, and Dr. Lamb quickly removed the tube from her hand. Oliver relaxed slightly.

Oliver flashed a fake smile to Dr. Lamb and shook his hand once more, “Thanks for coming.”

“Anything for you, Mr. Queen.” 

“Thank you,” Felicity smiled weakly at him.

When the door closed behind Lamb, her smile fell and she glared at Oliver, “Why do you have to be so,” her hands waved around in front of her face, “pushy all of the time?”

“Felicity, he’s worried. We are both worried.” Diggle warned, taking hold of Felicity’s hand. 

Oliver did his best to ignore the pang of jealousy that went through him. He remained by the door, across the room, hoping it would help to keep his head clear. 

She looked between them and sighed.

“Yeah, well, what took you two so long, anyways?” She smiled, a teasing note to her voice. 

As soon as the words left her mouth, Oliver’s heart clenched and his knees gave out. He lost his balance and had to press his hand against the wall to catch himself from falling. Pain shot through his collarbone, causing him to grimace. 

Diggle frowned, “Are you ok? Do you think you have a concussion from that hit?”

“I’m fine,” Oliver replied shortly, his eyes boring into Felicity. What had taken him so long? “No concussion.”

Diggle didn’t look convinced, so Oliver smiled at him to try to reassure him, “Really.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you should sit,” Diggle gestured to the chair next to him.

“I’m fine,” Oliver lied. 

Oliver was finding it hard to concentrate. Felicity’s words kept echoing in his head, and he replayed them again and again. What had taken him so long to find her? She had been waiting for him, and he had let her down. He didn’t understand how she could be so cavalier about it. 

He knew that she was being brave, and that she had to have been brave to live through the last two days. She would need to be even more brave to move forward, but he didn’t doubt her ability to do it. He was proud of her for it. But it never should have happened, and she wouldn’t have needed that bravery if he had done what he should have from the beginning.

He had so many questions for her, but he didn’t want to push her, especially when she was still so weak.

“You can’t go home alone,” Oliver heard Diggle tell Felicity.

“Absolutely not,” Oliver said immediately. “You should stay with me.”

Felicity looked at him, shocked. Diggle nodded, and Oliver had to fight to hold back his own shocked expression.

“What?” Felicity was still staring at him in disbelief. She looked at Diggle, expecting him to be equally as surprised. When he wasn’t, she looked back to Oliver.

“We have plenty of space at my house. Diggle and I can both come and go without anyone asking too many questions. It’s just Thea and I, and she’s hardly around. Our staff is extremely discreet, I’ll make sure you’re comfortable, and you won’t have to worry about anything. You’ll be able to rest.” And, he’d sleep better knowing that she was protected. 

“He has a point,” Diggle shrugged. 

“Ok,” Felicity nodded, but Oliver thought he saw he gulp from across the room. “Just for a day or two.”

“We’ll see how you feel,” Oliver pushed back. Felicity frowned, and he backtracked, “Whatever you’re comfortable with. Stay until you feel better.”

“Ok,” she bit her lip. He looked away, trying to ignore the feelings that went through his body at even her most innocent gesture. He hated that he couldn’t control himself. She had been victimized. He need to support her, not lust after her. Shut it down, Oliver, he told himself over and over.

She had an uphill road to recovery ahead of her, and they still hadn’t talked about what had happened to her, but at least she would be close for the next few days. He vowed to himself to help her in any way possible.


	5. Chapter 5

After a silent discussion between he and Oliver, Diggle had left to get a bag for Felicity from her apartment (with explicit instructions from Felicity about what to get and where to get it from and to not mess anything up too much) and to prepare both her room and extra security at the mansion. They weren’t taking any chances. Oliver was thankful that Diggle hadn’t pushed his need to stay with her and even more thankful for Diggle not calling him out about it in front of Felicity.

The cops arrived for Felicity’s statement before the release papers were signed, and Oliver felt his body tense again. 

He was done worrying about people asking questions about he and Felicity being together. He could see one of the cops giving him a strange look, but he did his best to ignore it. All that mattered was that she felt safe and comfortable, and her demeanor had shifted entirely as the cops entered the room. Her weak smile was replaced by a worried frown, and Oliver felt like he could see her walls go up instantly.

Oliver’s stomach clenched, and he moved towards Felicity’s bed to stand at her side. He’d been both waiting for and dreading this moment since he’d arrived at the hospital. The cops needed to get her statement, and he hoped that he was strong enough to hear it. He would have to be, for her.

“I’m Detective Park, and this is my partner, Detective Rodgers. We were hoping we could get your statement now, Ms. Smoak,” said the first cop. 

“If you’re feeling well enough,” the second cop, a woman, added more kindly. “We understand that you just recently woke up.”

Felicity nodded, but stayed silent for a few seconds. He could tell how uncertain she was.

Oliver frowned, “It’s ok if you’re not ready.” He glared in the cops’ direction.

“No, I’m ok,” she nodded again, but she was unconsciously wringing her hands above the blanket on her bed. Oliver sat down in the chair closest to her and took her hand in his. He didn’t know if he was imagining it, but she seemed to relax, even if she had looked at him in surprise when his hand had grabbed hers.

“It won’t take long, I promise,” said the female detective. “We just need to know what happened from the time you left the bar to the time that our officers arrived on the scene.”

“I went out for drinks with co-workers, and when I got to my car there was a note on the windshield, threatening me.”

“Threatening you how?” One of the detectives asked. Oliver didn’t register who. He was too busy studying Felicity’s face, making sure that she was really ok. He knew how hard it could be to talk about bad experiences - he’d avoided doing it himself for years now. He hated that she was being forced to relive it.

“It just said that they were watching me, and if I didn’t do exactly as they had outlined, they would kill me.”

“Do you still have the note?”

She shook her head no. Oliver was impressed at how well Felicity lied to the police. If he hadn’t known her so well, he would have believed her, too. But he knew her better, and he knew how her nose wrinkled slightly when she avoided telling the truth. Her lie almost definitely confirmed that Payne had leveraged the Arrow against her. From within its sling, his hand balled into a fist against his chest and his nails cut into his palm.

She outlined how she had met Payne, and they had argued. She told them how she had been drugged.

Oliver tensed up even more, if possible, because this was the part that he had been fearing. What happened to Felicity while she was at Payne’s apartment, in the time that he couldn’t find her?

“He just said that he wanted to keep me in that room because he wanted to me to be safe. He’d been watching me for a few years, I think. He showed me a lot of pictures that he had taken. He kept me in a cage while he finished setting up the room,” she said calmly, but Oliver could hear her voice shake.

He squeezed his fist harder and could feel his fingernails start cutting into his palm. He looked down at where his other hand was holding hers, trying hard to control his rebuilding rage. Payne was dead. She was safe. 

“He let me out, but I charged at him and knocked him over. I couldn’t get the key…”

Oliver’s eyes snapped back up to her face.

“But he overpowered me and knocked me out with the drugs again.”

“Ow!” Felicity yanked her hand from him, looking at him with strange eyes again. 

He’d squeezed her hand without realizing it, much harder than he thought. The whole room was looking at him, “I’m sorry.”

He set his jaw, balling his fist tighter, willing himself to be stronger. He knew where the light bruise on her jaw was from, now. He found himself wishing Payne was alive just so that he could kill him again. The thought scared him. How did she have this much power over him?

Felicity opened her mouth, but her eyes flicked to the detectives and she closed it again. She was still looking at him with those searching eyes. Thankfully, the moment was interrupted.

“If you can,” Detective Rodgers said kindly, “please go on Ms. Smoak.”

“That’s it, really. He left me in the restraints against the wall and came in every few hours to give me more drugs. I… I woke up and you guys were there. That’s it.”

The detectives looked at each other, and then Detective Rodgers spoke again, “You didn’t see anyone else?”

“No, why?” Felicity played dumb.

“The Arrow was there right before we arrived…”

“He goes after criminals, though, right?” Oliver slipped back into his public persona, speaking as calmly as possible and shifting his vision to the detectives.

“It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise that he had Payne in his sights,” Detective Park nodded.

“At least you won’t need to worry about Payne anymore,” Detective Rodgers muttered to herself, but it carried. Park and Oliver glared at her.

Felicity nodded, “You should have enough evidence against him to convict him with my testimony, right?”

“Oh,” Rodgers’s smile faltered.

“She’s been asleep most of the night and morning, Detective.” Oliver practically growled out. He didn’t know how she was going to react, and he had hoped to tell her himself. He should have told her earlier.

“What?” Felicity looked back and forth between them, nervously adjusting her glasses. “Did he get away?”

“The Arrow killed him,” Oliver hoped she would understand. She never liked that he killed, and this time it had been someone she knew personally. “Will that be all, detectives? Ms. Smoak needs to rest, and I’m not sure that your tactless approach at -- detecting -- is helping her recover.”

“Yes, that’s it,” Park nodded. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Smoak. We’ll let you know if we need anything else from you, but we’ll hopefully be able to close this case within a day or two.”

Felicity nodded and they left. Oliver was anxious. He hadn’t looked at her since his admission, too afraid of what she would think of him.

“I’m so sorry,” she choked out.

Her heartbroken words made his face flush. He found himself holding one of her hands again, staring her directly in the eye and not letting her look away when she tried, “What could you possibly be sorry for?”

“You broke your promise to Tommy because of me,” she bit her lip, her voice soft. “The whole no killing thingy…”

“I would do it again, without hesitation, because he had hurt you. He was going to continue to hurt you. You are not---” he was growling again, but he couldn’t help it. 

“I’m not what?”

“When I got to his apartment, he wasn’t there. But he came back when I was trying to free you. He said that you were his, and I snapped,” Oliver admitted, swallowing hard. “I lost control.” 

He needed to make her understand, even if he didn’t quite understand himself, “You are the most independent, strong, smart woman I have ever met. It’s just part of why I care about you so much.” Care, not love, Oliver, he told himself. “When he spoke about you like you were his property… it made me sick. I don’t regret doing what I did, and I never will. I would do it again a thousand times over if it meant keeping you safe from him.”

“Oh,” she gasped, looking at him differently now. It was her turn to gulp.

“That’s what friends are for, right?” Oliver backtracked and released her hand. It was getting too intimate, too close to where he knew their relationship couldn’t go. He couldn’t kiss her, no matter how much he wanted to in that moment.

She nodded, looking slightly put out. He ignored that, too, writing it off as his imagination.

“Are you ok? You look… not ok,” he finished lamely.

“I’m the king of ok,” she gave him a half smile. 

He frowned at her, and her smile grew wider until she snorted in laughter. Seeing his confused look, she rushed, “It’s from Doctor Who. You know, alien time traveller. And… I just realized that I’m sitting in a hospital room, after being kidnapped, quoting a sci fi show to Oliver Queen of all people, and you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“No,” he admitted slowly, “but you didn’t exactly answer my question, I think.” 

She sobered slightly, “This is how I react to stress. It’s easier for me to ramble and joke around than it is for me to cry. Put on a happy face, you know?”

“It’s easy to pretend, but you need to talk about what happened. I once told you that you could tell me about your day. You can tell me about this, too, but I understand if you would rather talk to someone else. I don’t care who it is, as long as you talk about it. It will eat away at you like a cancer if you don’t. ”

“Says you, of all people,” her voice had grown quiet again.

Oliver nodded, looking down, “That’s why you need to talk to someone. So that you don’t turn into me.”

“If only I could be so lucky,” she smiled weakly.

“Don’t,” he warned. She didn’t know what she was saying. He was getting too close to her, opening up to her too much. It was exactly what he had told himself that he wouldn’t do.

“I do need to know something, though,” he spoke slowly, the hand in the sling curling into a fist again. “What did Payne’s note actually say?”

Felicity chewed on her lip for a minute, “You’ll know if I’m lying, won’t you?”

“Probably.”

She pointed to the dresser to her purse, which had been brought by the police after they had processed her car as a crime scene, “Hand me my purse?”

He watched, impressed, when she removed a false bottom from the inside of her purse and withdrew the note from behind the lining.

His hands shook imperceptibly as he took it from her. She placed a hand over his, stopping him from opening it, and fixed him with a stern gaze, “Before you read it, I need to you know that this was not your fault. I don’t regret anything that I did, just like you don’t regret anything that you did.”

He didn’t respond, but she handed him the note anyways.

Opening it, a picture of himself with his hood down fell out and into his lap. He looked up at Felicity, and her worried eyes stared back at him. He read the note quickly, and his stomach dropped:

_If you don’t want the world to find out that Oliver Queen is the vigilante, follow the instructions below. Your phone has been tapped. If you call the police or Mr. Queen, I will publish this picture immediately. I’m listening._

He closed his fist around the note and the picture, crushing them, and stared defeatedly at his feet. He could feel a tear threatening to fall. He closed his eyes, bracing himself, and willed himself to pull it together. 

“It isn’t your fault,” she said gently. She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away.

“It is nothing but my fault, Felicity,” he growled out, shoving the papers into his pocket. “You will never know how sorry I am for what I’ve done to you or for what I have dragged you into.”

Suspecting and knowing were two different things. Now that he knew, he was ashamed of himself. He had failed her. This was why he couldn’t ever let anyone find out that he loved her. The guilt threatened to overwhelm him, and the tear he’d tried to stop dripped onto his cheek. He hated that she hadn't come to them immediately, that she had put his safety before her own. 

“Ol--” Felicity was cut off when the door opened. 

Oliver stood, wiped the tear away quickly, and turned towards the door. Diggle was just inside, giving Oliver a pointed glare. Oliver looked and saw that Felicity was crying. His heart fell again. He was supposed to be making things easier on her, not harder.

Diggle cleared his throat, crossing the room to Felicity, “Are you ok?”

She nodded, wiping at her cheeks, “Yeah, I’m fine.” Her nose was scrunched again. 

He knew Diggle wasn’t convinced, “Can I help?”

Felicity shook her head, and Oliver looked away. He could feel her staring at him. 

“Maybe later?” Diggle asked, and Felicity nodded. He gave her a smile, “You’ve been discharged. I have a car waiting downstairs,” Diggle continued, and he disappeared into the hallway for a second before wheeling a wheelchair into the room.

\---

“This room is as big as my whole apartment, if not bigger,” Felicity whistled. She was walking by herself, but that didn’t stop Oliver from hovering close to her, his hand inches from her elbow, just in case.

“Then you should feel right at home,” Oliver gave her an easy smile. His nerves were settling now that Felicity was back at Queen Mansion. It was arguably the safest place in or around Starling City.

He’d asked for a guest room in the same wing as his room be set up, and his staff had set up the one just down the hall. It was slightly smaller than his, but the windows would give Felicity a great view of the grounds. The California king bed had been freshened with clean sheets, and there were sunflowers on the bedside table just as Oliver had asked for. 

He walked with Felicity to the bed, never moving his hand too far from her elbow. Diggle entered behind them, carrying the bags that he had packed for Felicity. 

“I’m sick of being in bed,” Felicity groaned. “Can’t we go for a walk or something?”

“No way,” Diggle shook his head. “You heard the doctor. You need to rest.”

“In the morning?” She fake whined, but she was getting into bed anyways.

“We’ll see how you feel,” Diggle laughed. He leaned down and gave Felicity a kiss on her hairline. Oliver set his jaw, trying to stifle the pang of insane jealousy that shot through his body. Diggle looked to Oliver, “I’m going to make sure that security is in order. No loose ends.”

Oliver nodded, but Felicity frowned, “We don’t need security. Payne is dead. There isn’t anymore danger.”

“It’s not for that,” Diggle’s eyes flicked back to Oliver quickly, “We want to make sure that no paparazzi sneak onto the grounds tonight. The Queens practically have their own private army here, but we can never be too sure.”

“Wh-what?” Her voice faltered. “Why would they be here?” She shot a look at Oliver, “Did you do something?”

“It’s you,” he admitted, feeling ashamed. “The press got wind of the Payne story. Your name was leaked, and so did the fact that I was with the hospital with you all night last night. I don’t know if anyone saw us leave together, but...” he trailed off, feeling extra guilty. He had failed to protect her in another way. “I’m sorry.”

“If it’s any consolation, there wasn’t any report of the Arrow at the crime scene. It seems like the cops are covering up any involvement,” Diggle added.

She gulped, “We’ll figure it out. It’s not like I’ve lived the most private life the past few years, right?”

Oliver grimaced, immediately going to her side when he saw the look of defeat in her eyes. He had to fight down the rage that was threatening to consume him again. It wasn’t getting any easier to see Felicity, his rock, doubting herself and so afraid.

He reached down and gave one of her hands a quick squeeze, “No one will get this story. After a few days, things will die down. They’ll find a new one to focus on. If not, I will personally go out into Starling City, have the drunkest night of my life and give them something else.”

Felicity smiled, and Oliver felt his heart lighten. He wanted to lean down and kiss her so badly. His eyes locked with hers, and his head started to dip ever so slightly.

Diggle cleared his throat, “I’m going to go do my walkthrough. Oliver, can I talk to you for a minute in the hallway?”

“Sure,” Oliver snapped, not hiding his annoyance as well as he had intended to. He followed Diggle into the hallway, and Diggle shut it behind him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice was stern and commanding, like it always was when he disagreed with something Oliver was doing.

“I’m not doing anything, Diggle,” he was squeezing his fists again.

Diggle frowned, “Felicity’s just been through a huge ordeal. Things that she thought were true about herself aren’t true anymore. She was betrayed by a close friend and a co-worker. Whatever you’re thinking--”

“I’m not--” Oliver tried to protest, but Diggle stopped him.

“Whatever you’re thinking about her, keep that in mind. I will not stand by and watch you mess with her emotions after what she’s been through.”

Oliver gritted out. “I’m trying to help a friend. A friend.That’s it.”

“We both know how you feel about her,” Oliver was glaring now, sure Diggle could see his rage. Diggle put his hands into the air in a surrendering gesture, “Don’t look at me like that. You know it’s true. I don’t know whether or not this made you finally realize it, or what is going on in your head right now, but keep in mind what she’s been through. Stay away from her if you aren’t one hundred percent in this.”

Had he really been that transparent? Diggle was right, though. He knew that his feelings couldn’t go anywhere, so he had to get better at hiding them. It wasn’t fair to her.

Oliver nodded, and Diggle started to walk away, but Oliver grabbed his arm to stop him, “When Felicity first came in on this, I said that we would both protect her. We didn’t do that.”

Diggle nodded, and Oliver could see the hurt in the man’s eyes. He wasn’t the only one with guilt.

“I won’t fail to protect her again,” Oliver said, his voice grave.

“I know,” Diggle nodded. He shifted awkwardly, “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow, and Diggle continued, “Leftover batches of Vertigo are being stored in the warehouse district, but they’re moving tonight before they try to find a buyer. Are you up to putting the hood on tonight to do some recon? Or do you want to tip off the cops and hope they handle it? Tonight will be our only chance before we lose it.”

Oliver looked at Felicity’s closed door for a few moments. He couldn’t let Vetigo be an unknown variable in the city. It had suffered enough at its hands. He knew that he had to leave her at some point, but he didn’t like it. He nodded, “I’ll be there.” 

“I’ll meet you back at the foundry in an hour.”

When he walked away, Oliver took a few seconds to compose himself before walking back into Felicity’s room with a smile.

“Is everything ok?” She frowned at him.

“Absolutely,” Oliver smiled. “Just a little something for the the Arrow tonight, but it’s nothing major. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re not as good at lying as you think you are,” Felicity frowned, sitting up straighter. She tried to get out of bed, but Oliver was at her side at an instant, holding her in place. Her frown deepened, “If you think that you’re going to go out and be all grr bad guys without me at the very least monitoring the police scanners and your arm in a sling, you are out of your---”

“Felicity,” Oliver broke her rant. He waited a few seconds before speaking to make sure that her brain had stopped racing. She had a point about the sling, but it would just be a recon mission. There shouldn’t be any fighting. He smiled to reassure her, “I’m just getting a look so that we can get more information and maybe plant a bug. Diggle will be subbing for you tonight. You’ve taught him enough that he can do your ‘very leasts.’ We’ll be fine. You need to rest.”

She crossed her arms, but settled back into bed and he could see a smirk playing across her lips, “You make it sound like you don’t even need me.”

“We were absolutely worthless trying to track you when you were taken,” his voice deepened, and for a second he felt the all-too-familiar hopelessness that he had felt while they were trying and failing to track her. “I need you.”

Her mouth formed a small ‘o’, and she looked at Oliver with those strange eyes that couldn’t figure out again. It was like she was trying to puzzle something together. 

He cleared his throat, “I’m going to have to go if Diggle and I are going to prepare for tonight. Are you going to be ok?”

“I’ll be fine,” she looked around the room, “It’s too bad this ridiculously big room doesn’t have an equally as ridiculously big TV, though. I hate watching things on my tablet.”

Oliver smirked and took a remote off of her bedside table. He pushed a button, and a wooden panel on the opposite side of the room slid back. She gaped, “Of course you have that. I mean, why wouldn’t you have a special hiding place if you had a TV that huge? I can’t wait to see what other tricks you can do in this bedroom.” Her hand shot to her mouth and her cheeks flushed, “I did not mean it like that.”

“Everything should be pretty straightforward for you electronically,” he ignored her comment and the way it made him feel. She always misspoke like that, it didn’t mean that she had any feelings towards him. He picked up another, much smaller remote with a single button and handed it to her. “If you need anything, you can press this, and someone will be here in seconds to get you what you need. Please stay in bed.”

Felicity nodded, and Oliver hesitated for a moment. His hand hovered, like he was going to stroke her hair, but he finally pulled it away. He walked to the door and turned back. She looked so small and fragile in that big bed. He frowned again, admitting in a quiet voice, “I don’t like leaving you alone so soon after… everything.”

“Me neither,” she admitted, just as quietly. The fear and uncertainty in her voice was enough to convince him to stay. He was about to cross to her, to tell her that he wasn’t going anywhere and to hell with the vertigo, when she put her hands up, “But you have to go. You won’t always be here, and neither will Diggle. We’ll consider this a trial run. And you’ll be back before I know it, right?”

“Right,” Oliver nodded, but his feet didn’t move. How could he leave her?

“I’ll be ok, Oliver,” Felicity smiled lightly. 

He looked just left of her, unable to make eye contact. He didn’t want her to know how much he was being affected by having to leave her. He set his jaw, “Ask me to stay, and I will.”

She shook her head, “I won’t do that. This city needs you more than I do right now. Go.”

His heart heavy, he left the room and closed the door.

Diggle had tried to reassure him by giving him status reports from the security guards at Queen Mansion, but it didn’t work as intended. Every time there was nothing to report, Oliver grew even more anxious to go and check on her himself. He knew that she wouldn’t call anyone if she was scared or lonely or frightened. She was too strong willed, and too set on allowing Oliver to complete his mission.

It had taken longer than either of them had thought it would to get the tracking devices installed and a bug planted. There were more people and more activity than anticipated, and it had taken hours for Oliver to be able to slip in undetected. 

Finally, it was over. Diggle went home for the night, and Oliver found himself outside of Felicity’s bedroom door, debating what he should do. He knew that it was late and that she was probably sleeping, but he had to at least see her before he retired to his room.

Steeling himself, he knocked lightly. No one answered.

He gently pushed the door open, not wanting to disturb her. He knew that he shouldn’t be so worried, shouldn’t be coming into her room while she was sleeping, but he couldn’t help it. He had to see her and know that she was resting peacefully. 

He silently walked over to her bed, and his heart dropped. She was gone.

His blood froze instantly. He threw the covers off the bed, checked the bathroom, and made sure that the windows were all still locked. She wasn’t anywhere to be found. His heart raced. What could have happened to her? He should have heard about it if there had been an incident. He didn’t think that anyone could get into or out of the mansion without being spotted. They’d set up security to avoid that from happening.

His phone was in his hand, about to call Diggle, when he heard her voice scream, “HELP!”

He tore out of the room, towards the voice, but his legs felt like they were going to give out at any minute.

“HELP! OLIVER! HELP! PLEASE OLIVER!”

Sheer panic was taking over his senses. He followed her voice, finding himself face-to-face with his own bedroom door. Not thinking anything of protecting himself from an assault, he tore into the room, ready to fight anything and anyone that was hurting her.

There was no one. He turned the lights on.

She asleep, but she was thrashing in her bed like she was fighting off an invisible assailant. He could see a spot of blood trickling down one of her wrists where she must have hit it against something. 

“Help, Oliver! Help me!” her voice cried, and he could hear the tears in her throat.

He sprinted to her, “Felicity!”

She didn’t wake, so he climbed into the bed next to her. She fought him in her sleep, slapping him across his bruised jaw before he held her tightly to him with his good arm, his other arm pressed between his chest and her thrashing body. He didn’t want her to hurt herself any more than she already had. His heart in his throat, he stroked her hair and began whispering to her, “I’m here, Felicity. It’s Oliver. It’s me. I’m here.”

She struggled for a moment longer, but she must have heard him, because he felt her body begin to relax. He could feel her shifting from sleep to consciousness.

Her eyes jolted open, and she tried to push away from him. This time, he let her. “It’s me. You’re ok.”

He could see the realization in her eyes, and she gasped and reached out for him. He pulled her into his embrace, his heart racing as she pressed her face into his chest. He found himself burying his face into her hair, breathing in her scent, trying desperately to reassure himself that she was ok, she was safe, and she was still there. With a twinge, he realized that his shirt was dampening. She was crying.

They sat in each other’s arms for a minute, neither wanting to separate. Finally, Felicity pulled back and looked at him with tears in her eyes. Her voice sounded broken, “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey,” he cupped her face in his hand, “It was just a nightmare. You don’t need to apologize to me, of all people, about nightmares, ok?”

He was all too familiar with them. It was an unspoken fact in Queen Mansion that he had night terrors regularly. Thea had asked him about them once, but had dropped the subject after his reaction. He was grateful his family and staff left him alone with them, especially after he had attacked his own mother the first night he was home. 

“Richard was taking me,” Felicity admitted. Oliver set his jaw to hide the anger that he felt at the mention of his name. “Except this time he was meaner, and he was so angry with me. He wanted to kill me, and I couldn’t get away from him and I---” her voice broke, and she started crying again.

Oliver pulled her back to him, hugging her tightly. He wished, again, that Payne was still alive so that he could kill him once more. He stroked her hair, “You’re safe now. Payne is gone, and he is never coming back. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Felicity sniffed, her tears slowing. She shuddered in his arms, and he moved his hand from her hair to rub her back. Eventually, she calmed. She drew away from him slowly, and he took her hand in his and twisted it so that her palm was facing upwards. 

Her wrist was bleeding slightly still, trickling down her forearm. Gingerly, he reached into the bedside table drawer and removed a bandage and medical supplies. Felicity raised an eyebrow at him, but Oliver shrugged and gave her a soft, reassuring smile.

His rough, calloused hands worked quickly over her delicate skin, removing the old bandages and cleaning and re-dressing the wound. When he finished, he put everything on top of the bedside table and inspected his work.

“You’re good with your hands,” Felicity muttered.

Oliver smirked, but tried his best to hide it from her. His heart lightened a little, thankful that the nightmare and the terror from it were starting to leave her. He checked himself, making his voice more calm than he still felt. He tried to sound light, like he was teasing her, “What are you doing in my bed anyways?”

“I panicked when I came home and you weren’t in your room,” Oliver admitted in a low voice, “I thought I had lost you again, and I…” he stopped himself before he revealed too much about how he felt for her.

“I’m sorry,” Felicity looked up at him, biting her lip again, “I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Richard…” she shuddered, and Oliver’s fists clenched again. “I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I am incredibly thankful for everything you've done, but it's all so unfamiliar. I needed…” she started chewing on her lip, like she caught herself from saying something.

“What did you need?” His voice was low, lower than he had wanted it to be, and his heart had started racing again, but for very different reasons.

“I needed you,” she admitted, not meeting his piercing gaze. “The entire time I was with Richard, I knew that you would rescue me. I never doubted you. And, of course, you did. I didn’t have any trouble falling asleep last night, or napping today, and I didn’t have any nightmares, and I think it’s because I knew you were with me, protecting me.”

She finally met his gaze, and he could see something in her eyes that he had never seen before. Want? Desire? Love? Need? Was that what it looked like when she looked into his eyes? He felt his resolve slipping. She spoke quietly, “I couldn't ask you to come back tonight, so I thought that if I could smell you and be surrounded by you, it would be like being with you. I felt safe falling asleep here.”

Her cheeks reddened, but she didn’t look away. Oliver’s eyes were filled with shame, but he didn’t look away because he needed her to realize what he already had, “I failed you. Payne took you because of what I am, what I do. Your life is dangerous because of me.”

She shook her head, “I choose to do what we do.” Her hands found his free one, and she squeezed it, making sure that he was still looking at her, “He was sick, and he’d been planning on taking me for months. He probably would have eventually, regardless of whether or not I’d ever met you. I don’t know that I would have been found by the police in time or at all if I hadn’t had the vigilante tipping them off and expediting the investigation along the way. You saved me.”

“I should have been there sooner,” he countered.

“Diggle told me what you guys did to track me,” Felicity nodded, squeezing his hand again. “You did all you could do.”

“We should have done more… I shouldn’t have ever stopped looking for you… I should have…”

“Hey,” She raised her voice slightly silencing him. “Rambling is my thing.”

She moved closer to him and placed a hand on either side of his face, “He told me that you didn’t sleep, went manually through hours and hours of video footage, and broke into a company in broad daylight to find me. You found me. I’m alive. You did everything you could do.”

The protests that he had in his head had disappeared the second Felicity’s hands were on him. He closed his eyes, relishing in how her hands felt against his cheeks for a few seconds before opening them and exhaling, “You’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Felicity rolled her eyes and removed her hands from his face. “Although, the fact that you and Diggle manually went through that video footage physically hurts me.”

“We’re upgrading your systems immediately,” Oliver growled. “Don’t get anything less than top of the line. I don’t want to feel that helpless ever again, especially when it comes to you.”

Felicity grinned and nodded in excitement, but she yawned, and Oliver saw it despite her attempts to cover it up.

Oliver frowned, “This can wait until tomorrow. You need to get some more sleep. You can stay here if you want, and I can go in…”

“Can you stay?” She asked, her voice quiet again, like it had been last night in the hospital room. 

He took her hand in response, and she laid down next to him. He stayed upright, and her head shifted into his lap as she curled into a sleeping position. He stroked her hair as she fell back asleep. He knew that he shouldn’t enjoy it as much as he was, but he couldn’t help it. The feeling of holding her was something that he could get used to.

For the first time in a very long time, being in bed with someone felt right.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually only the first part of the next chapter because I was taking so long to write it, and I wanted to get something, ANYTHING posted. Thank you so, so much for all of the kind notes and words! This is the first thing that I have written in over five years, so it is extremely encouraging! I promise to have the second part (with much more Olicity) posted ASAP!

Oliver didn’t sleep that night. He stroked Felicity’s hair, feeling the soft shine between his fingers, and finally his hand came to rest on the pulse of her wrist, to continually remind himself that she was here and was ok.

He couldn’t help but think of what Diggle had said to him earlier. He wanted to be there for Felicity. She had even said that she needed him. But, she was also vulnerable. He couldn’t hold her to her actions or words, or the fact that she was currently curled up next to him with her head on his lap. It didn’t mean anything, because she had needed anyone in that moment, not him specifically. He needed to tread carefully. 

Still, he couldn’t help but gulp when one of her hands shifted onto his upper thigh. He closed his eyes for a moment, relishing in the warmth of her touch. Ignoring his feelings for her was getting harder and harder with every hour that passed.

Felicity woke shortly after the sun came up, stretching out and blinking her eyes. Oliver could see the moment when she realized where she was, but his heart sunk when she jerked and moved a foot away from him, sitting up and blushing profusely. She avoided looking at him, “I am so sorry that I am so, incredibly inappropriate all of the time. Please pretend that I was not just doing... that.”

Oliver smiled reassuringly and ignoring the hollow feeling in his stomach, “Ok.”

She ran her fingers through her hair, wincing, “I probably look like a train wreck.”

“You look beautiful,” the words came out before he could stop them.

Her hand halted for a moment and she finally looked at him with that same expression that he couldn’t place. It was something more than confusion and less than intrigue, but it was definitely guarded. He mentally kicked himself.

“You look hungry,” he recovered quickly, moving to reach for the button on the side table.

“Can we go downstairs and eat, maybe?” Felicity bit her lip. “As much as I love being in bed with you… I mean, not like in bed, in bed. Just being with you. I mean, I’m comfortable.” Oliver waited for her to collect herself, ignoring the image that had flashed through his mind. “What I mean is, it would be great to get up and do something instead of laying in bed today.”

“Absolutely,” Oliver nodded. He couldn’t keep her confined to bed rest forever, and even he had to admit that she looked a lot better than she had yesterday.

“I should change,” she said quietly, looking down at herself.

“Why?” 

“You rich, fancy people always get dressed before you go down to your fancy breakfasts, right?” Felicity shrugged as she got out of the bed. “I don’t want to feel out of place.”

“You rich fancy people?” he asked indignantly.

She raised her eyebrows, “Do you deny It?”

He got out of bed and moved swiftly to her side. She looked better, but he still wasn’t going to take any chances. “Relax. You look great. If it makes you feel any better, I won’t change either.”

She contemplated for a moment before nodding, “Ok.”

They walked down to the dining room faster than Oliver would have liked, but Felicity seemed stable enough. His hand hovered behind her back the whole time, and he couldn’t tell if she was walking stiffly because she was uncomfortable with his hand being there or because her body was still sore. He didn’t ask, because he wouldn’t like either of the options.

They sat on opposite sides of the table, but it felt like a mile after spending so many hours so close to her. He picked at his food, spending more time subtly watching Felicity eat instead. She was unnaturally quiet, and he couldn’t help but think it was because she was uncomfortable with all of the staff present. He wanted to send them away, but Oliver Queen would never do that, and he didn’t want to raise suspicions. Still, he hated her silence.

Halfway through, Thea came into the room. Oliver swallowed heavily. He hadn’t expected her to come home two days in a row.

He could see Felicity’s cheeks flush pink, and she looked worriedly between Oliver and Thea, and then, to his slight amusement, she looked down at her clothes and glared at him. Thea was fully dressed with fresh make up.

“Thea,” Oliver couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice when he greeted his sister with a quick kiss on the cheek. “Good morning.”

Thea waved her hand at him impatiently and looked to Felicity, “I just saw what happened on the news. Are you ok?”

Felicity nodded, looking slightly shell-shocked to be getting Thea’s attention. 

“Thank god,” Thea rounded the table and sat in the chair next to her, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I am so sorry. I can’t imagine. It must have been terrifying.”

Oliver cleared his throat, “Do you two know each other?”

Thea made a face at him, “She helped me get Verdant’s network online after the quake, and she’s your assistant. Why would I not know her?”

“Oh… right.” 

She rolled her eyes, “You are so dense.”

“Mr. Queen?” A butler appeared in the doorway of the dining room. “Detective Lance is here to see you.”

Felicity’s fork clattered onto her plate. She looked, wide eyed at Oliver and started to get to her feet.

He held up a hand, his tone leaving no room for argument, “Finish your breakfast. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Is everything ok?” Thea asked, her face draining of color. Guilt panged in Oliver’s chest again. His sister had seen too much in the last year, and it was mostly his fault. Tommy’s death, Roy’s abduction, their mother’s arrest… his presence had put events into motion, and Thea was always caught in the crosshairs.

“Absolutely,” Oliver smiled at her. “I’m sure he just wants to wrap up some loose ends. Two QC employes, you know?”

Thea nodded, but Felicity was still paralyzed with fear. He could see it in her eyes. He locked eyes with her, hoping to reassure her, “I’ll be right back.”

He greeted Lance in the entry with a firm handshake, “What can I help you with, Detective?”

There were no traces of what had happened last night or this morning in his voice or his demeanor. He was simply Oliver Queen, playboy billionaire. It was easy to wear the mask around Lance because he expected it. He saw it even when Oliver tried to act otherwise.

“We need to talk,” Lance’s eyes flitted to the butler that had escorted Oliver, “Privately.”

Oliver nodded. He led Lance into his dad’s old office, a room that they usually avoided. Oliver remembered a few times from his childhood when he had pushed his ear to the door, hoping to overhear some of the business meetings that his dad had, but never quite being able to make out the words. Closing the door behind him, he took a seat behind his dad’s old desk and gestured for Lance to sit as well. 

The two men stared at each other from across the desk, but Oliver refused to speak first, instead raising an eyebrow and inviting the conversation. 

Lance started casually, gesturing to Oliver’s sling and jaw, “You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”

“A misunderstanding with a jealous boyfriend,” Oliver’s lips quirked into an easy smile.

“It looks to me more like you went through a wall and took a bat to the face,” Lance quipped, his voice much sharper. “If I had to guess.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Oliver’s eyes narrowed. Somehow, Lance knew.

Lance tsked, and the silence returned as they stared at each other again, both refusing to make a move. Finally, he reached into his jacket and dropped something onto the desk with a loud thud.

Oliver set his jaw. It was a file a few inches thick. From across the room, he could read the words written across it in bold, black letters: **OLIVER QUEEN / ~~THE HOOD~~ ARROW.**

He forced a laugh and rolled his eyes. He looked at the detective, “C’mon, I thought we settled this a year ago. He was in one place and I was in another, remember? Cleared of all charges.”

“Because you really aren’t the Arrow or because you had an accomplice?” Lance was still staring at him, watching for any reaction. 

Oliver was determined to not give him one. He had learned painful lessons about lying on the island. Lance wouldn’t get any information from his facial expressions, “Do I need a lawyer, Detective?”

The two men stared at each other in silence for a few more moments before Lance grabbed the file, opened it, and began leafing through paper after paper. No, Oliver was wrong. Pictures. His stomach clenched.

Lance began, “You wouldn’t believe how obsessively organized psychopaths are. Even the most deranged ones usually have every aspect of their life completely ordered and planned out.” He removed the first photo from the pile, placing it down on the desk so that it was facing Oliver.

It was of Oliver, hood down, bow in hand, speaking to Felicity.

“This psychopath, though… he chose to stalk abduct someone that I know helps the Arrow. So, I honestly can’t say that I’m surprised to have found these when processing Payne’s apartment as a crime scene.”

Three more pictures came out. Oliver and Felicity going into the back entrance of Verdant. Oliver leaving Verdant, dressed as Arrow. Diggle, Felicity, and Oliver in full Arrow garb, discussing something in an alleyway. From the look of it, hundreds of pictures of definitive proof that Oliver was the vigilante were in that file. Even more worrisome, hundreds damning Diggle and Felicity as his accomplices.

Oliver’s forced smile disappeared from his face entirely. The evidence was irrefutable. 

“What was that you were saying about being cleared of all charges?” Lance collected the stack of photographs and put them back into the folder. He crossed his arms, watching Oliver intently.

Oliver shifted his jaw, tapping a finger once on the desk. The island had taught him to lie and to kill and to fight, but it had also taught him when the battle was lost.

He spoke deliberately, with a strength that came from years of resolution, “Arrest me, but leave Diggle and Felicity alone. They have nothing to do with this.”

Lance nodded, and Oliver was empty again. First, he had failed Felicity. Now, he was going to be arrested, and that meant he had failed his entire family, his father, Queen Consolidated, all of its employees and the families that relied on their salaries, and everyone else that the Arrow would be unable to help in the future. 

Thea would be utterly and entirely alone. And, with the sheer number of criminals in the Starling City prison system that were there as a result of the Arrow, she and the rest of his friends and family would more than likely be attending the second of his funerals within six years. This time there would be no miraculous resurrection.

Lance stood, and Oliver stood with him, moving around the desk to come face-to-face with his arrest. Lance reached towards him, but instead of handcuffing him, he took Oliver’s hand and shook it.

He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning anymore, either. He cleared his throat, “I used to think that justice was always found through the law, and I’ve struggled with what to do with this information for the last two days. Before yesterday, Oliver Queen was the reason my family was split in two. I’ve spent years hating you. Now I know that you were responsible for saving my life and Laurel’s life, repeatedly, over the last year. You saved half of The Glades, and you’ve helped Starling City get rid of countless terrorists.” 

Oliver was embarrassed when he realized that there was a watery sheen to one of Lance’s eye. Lance continued, “More than that, you helped bring Sara back to me.”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you.” He pushed the file into Oliver’s hands, “I took the file from Paye’s apartment before anyone else saw it. It never existed, and I never saw it. I made damn sure it was the only paper reference to you in that place, but if any of that blood could possibly be yours, you’ll have to make it disappear like you did last time. There’s also a laptop in evidence that belonged to Payne. It isn’t slated to be processed until tomorrow. Your life for Sara’s life. We’re even. Are we understood?”

Oliver nodded, not quite believing what he was hearing or seeing, “Thank you, Detective.”

Lance’s eyes narrowed, “If you’ve started killing criminals again like you used to, I will do everything in my power to make that killing stop. I will find evidence, and I will arrest you. There is a justice system in this city for a reason. Don’t make me regret this.”

“As long as someone I care about isn’t in danger, I’m done.” Oliver said confidently, his voice low and serious.

Lance considered his words for a while before accepting them with a nod. He cleared his throat, “Laurel…”

“Can never find out about this,” Oliver finished. “Anyone who finds out is in danger. What happened to Felicity...”

He trailed off and tightened his fists once more, unable to finish the sentence. The thought alone was enough to make him sick. 

Lance was nodding again anyways, “Good.”

It appeared that they saw eye-to-eye on more than Oliver would have ever thought.

“I won’t tell anyone. You have my word.” Lance walked to the door of the office before turning back, “You have my number if you need me.”

He left after that. The unspoken words were what said the most to Oliver. Lance wasn’t completely ok with it, but he wasn’t going to stop him from doing what needed to be done, and, more importantly, he would still help in the future if the Arrow ever needed him.

He took a moment to collect his thoughts before tucking the file securely under his slinged arm and rejoining Thea and Felicity in the dining room. To his surprise, they were laughing like they’d been friends for years. His stomach knotted, but he didn’t know why.

Oliver cleared his throat, and they both looked up at him. They were both smiling, but he could see the worry in Felicity’s eyes. 

“All done?” Thea asked.

Oliver nodded, “Yeah, they’re wrapping up the investigation.” He looked to Felicity, “We did have something come up at work… can I borrow you for a while?”

“Ollie,” Thea admonished him, her voice angry, “Felicity deserves the week off, at least. It’s not---”

“It’s fine,” Felicity stood, placing a reassuring hand on Thea’s shoulder. “I’m up to it.”

“I don’t like it, but whatever.” Thea conceded. “Movie later, though? I’ll be around all day, and I’ll get someone else to take care of the club tonight if you want.”

Felicity nodded, a light smile on her lips, “Definitely.”

It was so normal of an exchange, Oliver found himself almost believing that it was meant to be that way. For a second, he wasn’t the vigilante, he hadn’t been stranded on a deserted island, and he hadn’t just gotten one of his best friends kidnapped. He was just a man, and she was just a woman who inexplicably, despite all of the differences between the two, got along with his sister.

But when she walked towards him and her eyes landed on the file beneath his arm and her eyebrows raised in concern, the thoughts disappeared and he set his jaw. He was too dangerous for her. 

As they exited the room, Diggle entered the front door of the mansion. He smiled when he saw Felicity, “How are you?”

“Much better than I expected,” Felicity admitted. Oliver’s free hand was still hovering behind Felicity’s lower back, and it did not go unnoticed by she nor Diggle. “Oliver’s much better with bedside manner than the brooding moodiness lets on.”

He frowned, “I am not brooding.”

Felicity and Diggle looked to each other and both broke out into laughter. 

His frown deepened, “If it’s not interrupting whatever this is, we need to talk.”

He led them into the his father’s office, hand still hovering behind Felicity’s back. Behind him, Diggle coughed, but the cough sounded suspiciously like “moody,” and Felicity giggled. His mood worsened.

“Lance came by,” Oliver turned towards them, placing the file on the desk beside him. Diggle and Felicity’s eyes both found it, and her jaw dropped open. “He knows.”

Diggle crossed his arms, “I’ll take the fact that you’re not in handcuffs as a positive sign, then?”

“He was… accepting,” Oliver concluded for a lack of better words. 

Felicity picked up the file and flipped through the pictures. Oliver watched her carefully as she bit her lip in worry, “I’m so sorry, Oliver.”

He frowned deeper, “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“If it weren’t for me…”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he reiterated, his voice stronger. “This isn’t your fault.”

Diggle nodded, “You couldn’t have known he was following you.” He looked at Oliver pointedly, “None of us could.”

Oliver disagreed, his guilt eating away at him, and he took a moment to keep his head level before continuing, “He’s given me everything about us in the apartment, but Payne’s laptop is in evidence, set to be processed tomorrow.”

Felicity nodded, and Oliver was relieved to see the color coming back to her face, “Payne will have back ups on there. We need to get that laptop.”

“I’ll go tonight. Is there any chance that you could order the blood samples from the scene destroyed like you did last time, just in case?”

She nodded, but Diggle shook his head, “She needs to be resting…”

“Trust me, John. I’ve never been more anxious to get my fingers on a computer and program or hack or laugh at cat pictures on the internet in my entire life,” Felicity said eagerly. “I’ll be fine.”

“Diggle will stay here tonight while I’m gone to make sure…” Oliver trailed off. He couldn’t articulate anything bad happening to her. “He’ll be here tonight.”

“No way,” Felicity protested. “You’re hurt and breaking into a police station. You need someone monitoring you, and as much as I hate it, we both know that you’re not about to let me do it. Diggle has to be in the lair.”

Oliver cringed at the word lair (why did she insist on calling it that?) and stared determinedly past Felicity. He took another moment to calm himself before responding, “I don’t think you should be alone.”

Diggle nodded, “I’m on Oliver’s side with this one.”

“I won’t be alone,” she said confidently, “Thea just said that she would stay home with me tonight and watch movies. Between the two of you, I’m betting there are double, if not triple, the amount of security than actually necessary in and around this place. Don’t give me that look,” she added when she saw the two of them exchange a glance, “You know I’m right. I’ll be fine here. And, for the record, I’m getting pretty tired of telling everyone that I’m fine.”

Oliver watched her carefully. She wasn’t fine. Someone who was fine didn’t have night terrors.But, he could also tell that she needed this. His heart panged when he realized that she could be trying to prove that she would be ok without him hovering over her. Not that she needed him or anything. She was strong and confident, and it wasn’t because of his presence in her life. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel a strong desire to protect her. Was that wrong? He had enjoyed her sleeping on him. That, he was sure, was wrong. She was Felicity, and he was dangerous.

He realized that Felicity was waiting for a response and snapped out of his thoughts, clearing his throat, “Fine. It won’t take long. Maybe an hour or two, tops. And I’ll be here until then.”

“Oliver, you have a board meeting in an hour,” Diggle warned, obviously aware of what Oliver’s reaction would be.

Oliver shot daggers at him, “I won’t be attending.”

“They’re voting on the future of Applied Sciences,” Felicity shook her head. “You need to be there. It’s going to determine the path of the company for the next five years, at least. If you're not there, as CEO, you’re basically telling the board that Isabel makes all of the decisions.”

“Fine,” Oliver practically spat out. He pointed to Diggle, “You’re staying here.”

Diggle held his hands out in front of him in surrender, “No argument.”


	7. Chapter 7

The board meeting lasted the entire day and then some before a consensus was reached. It was already dark by the time Oliver walked out of Queen Consolidated, and he was anxious. He had hoped to go and check on Felicity between the meeting and suiting up, but too much night had already slipped away. 

Still, extracting the laptop had gone as easily as he had expected it to. He was in and out in less than five minutes, and he was on his way back home not an hour later. 

He felt like a weight was being lifted off of his chest when he walked into the living room and saw Felicity watching a movie with Thea asleep at her side. Felicity smiled at him when he entered, and she put a finger to her lips, looking down at Thea.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Felicity whispered to him. “How did everything go today?”

Oliver held up the laptop in response. 

Her smile widened, and she shifted away from Thea and stood up. Oliver passed the laptop to Felicity and bent down, lifting Thea with his good arm and using his slinged arm to cradle her, despite the painful protest in his collarbone. He whispered to her, “Meet you upstairs? I’ll to put her in bed.”

Thea must have been exhausted, he realized. She was working hard at the club in an executive and managerial role, something he had split between himself and Tommy. He was glad she was taking the night off, and even more happy that she’d chosen to spend it with Felicity.

Ignoring the tender look that Felicity was giving him, he brought Thea up into her room and tucked her into bed. As he was pulling the covers over her, she muttered, “I love you, Ollie.”

He stilled, warmth spreading in his chest. He smiled, “I love you, too, Speedy.”

No matter how much he distanced himself from his family, he was always surprised to find that they stuck by him. Thea had done it today, when she had dropped everything to be by Felicity’s side, even though the two of them could hardly be classified as friends. She must have seen how important Felicity was to him. After a hesitation, he bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

He walked down the hallway and looked into Felicity’s room. She wasn’t there, so she had to be in his room. He felt a bubble of desire surge through him when he thought about her in his bed, and it took him a moment to clear his head. She only felt safe in his room because he was the vigilante. It had nothing to do with Oliver Queen. 

Still, when he looked up after closing the door to his room and saw her casually sitting on his bed, his heart leaped and the desire flooded back, stronger than ever. Just one lamp was on, on the table next to her, giving her hair a soft glow that made him want to run his fingers through it. He tightened his fists.

“I’m glad you’re ok,” Felicity nodded to him, clutching the laptop to her chest.

Oliver smirked, “I wanted to say the same to you.”

“John kept me company all day, and then Thea and I watched a few movies. I’m doing a lot better, really,” she said confidently. “I’m coming to terms with things, slowly.”

Oliver crossed the room and sat on the bed next to her. He gestured to the laptop, “I didn’t want to get rid of it before, well, asking you what you wanted to do.”

She shook her head, “We need to wipe it first. I don’t doubt your abilities to… well, pulverize, it, but I don’t want to take any chances that some data survives. We’ll see what he had, and then we’ll wipe it.”

He nodded, watching her carefully as she started up the laptop. She paused when she saw a password appear on the login page, and Oliver saw her fingers start to shake.

Without hesitation, he reached out and held one of her hands. He looked to her, “We can do this later, if you want. There’s no reason we have to do it now.”

“I have to do it now,” she admitted, looking at him appreciation. “The sooner all of these pictures are gone, the faster I can move on.”

He nodded, his brow creased.

She reached onto the bedside table for her tablet and plugged it into the laptop, “Now, I just run this program, and…”

The laptop unlocked. She grinned in triumph, raising an eyebrow at Oliver.

“Remind me to never piss you off,” he muttered.

“You’ll have to try very, very hard,” Felicity laughed and nudged him playfully. He rolled his eyes.

There was an encrypted file on the desktop, and Oliver didn’t have to stretch to guess what it was. With another whirl of her fingers, Felicity had access to the file. Three folders, one for this year, and two for the years beforehand, and another folder marked “Felicity - records” were inside.

Felicity’s hand found Oliver’s again, and when he looked up at her, he could see that her eyes were closed tight and her face was scrunched like she was fighting off a panic attack. He moved closer to her and gave her had a reassuring squeeze, “You can do this.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” she whispered, and he didn’t know if it was to herself or to him. “I don’t want to see anything.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, opening her eyes and looking at him unsurely, “It just gives him power of the last few years of my life, right? I mean, as it stands I don’t know when he was there and when he wasn’t there. I want to assume that he wasn’t there on my first dates or while I was test driving my car or getting my keys to my new apartment instead of knowing that he was. Keep control of my memories, you know?” She looked at him unsurely, “That must sound so stupid to you.”

“No,” he said quickly and gave her hand a quick squeeze again. “I was actually just thinking that you’re a genius.”

“We already knew that,” she laughed lightly, but her face fell, “Is this ok with you?”

“This isn’t about the Arrow, Felicity. This is your decision, not mine. I’m going to support you, no matter what you decide. I’m here for you.”

Her eyes found his, and he was leaning closer to her without realizing it, her face was just an inch away from his. Her breathing caught, and she started to lean in closer. Oliver cleared his throat, backing his head away from hers and moving a few inches away from her on the bed. He needed to support her, but he couldn’t be there for her like that. He was too dangerous, and she was too innocent. He gestured to the screen, “Will it be hard to get rid of anything?”

She looked at him with that same unplaceable look that he’d seen on her face in the last two days and bit her lip before responding, “No. I’ll run the files through the file shredder that I programmed. It’s highly efficient. It shouldn’t take long.”

Once again, her fingers were flying over her tablet. Oliver watched as the files disappeared from the computer’s screen. She continued working, though, muttering to herself as the screen flashed, “And by uploading this bug to his computer, I wipe out the rest of his memory and corrupt his online accounts. Permanently. Just in case.”

He nodded in appreciation, “Thanks.”

“I think I should be saying thanks to you, actually” 

Everything was slowing down for him, and he realized how close they were still sitting. He cleared his throat again, moving to get off of the bed, “You probably want to be getting to sleep. You need to rest.”

“Oliver,” her shaking voice stopped him. 

He turned back, his brow furrowed and his fists clenched and raised an eyebrow, “Something wrong?” 

She steadied a look at him, “You’re acting really strange lately.”

“No, I’m not.” His voice was colder than he had intended it to be. He needed to be strong and not let his feelings for her get carried away. What had happened to locking those feelings down? She had happened. He was finding it hard to maintain the level of control that he usually had when he was around her.

“The way you keep looking at me,” she said nervously, “It’s almost like… well, it’s like…”

“Like what?” He croaked out, unable to meet her eyes. Instead, he closed them.

Her voice was hesitant when it reached his ears, “I know this sounds as crazy to you as it does to me, but it looks like you’re about to kiss me.”

He closed his eyes tighter, gulping. He hadn’t done a very good job of hiding his feelings, not a good job at all. “I’ve never been more scared in my life as I was when I realized you were missing.”

He opened his eyes to look at her, still clenching his fists. She watched him hesitantly, “The island?”

“Not even on the island,” he shook his head.

She gulped, “So that makes you want to kiss me?”

“No,” he hook his head. “The fact that I thought I was never going to see you again makes me want to kiss you.”

“Oh,” her jaw dropped. He fought to contain his own surprise at his admission. He was supposed to be pushing her away, not running to her. 

He shifted, frowning, “I can’t kiss you, Felicity.”

“Why not?” Her voice was softer, and he thought he could hear a trace of hurt in it.

“I’m dangerous.”

“I know you won’t hurt me.”

He shook his head, “It’s not me I’m worried about. The things I do put the people around me at risk.”

“The things you do as Arrow,” she pointed out. “As far as I can tell, Oliver Queen is sitting in this bed right now, not a man in a green hood.”

“We’re the same person,” he said lowly. She needed to understand.

“But the world doesn’t know that,” she explained with a smile.

“Felicity…” he growled. “This isn’t a joke. I’m dangerous.”

“Arrow is dangerous,” she countered again.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Felicity had already closed the gap between them and her mouth covered his, stifling any protest that he was about to voice. His mind went blank, and all he could focus on was how her lips felt on his. His hands moved into her hair, cupping the back of her head. How could something that was this good be so wrong? Could she feel that same pull that he felt, the same electric spark between them?

Surprising him completely, Felicity slowly moved so that she was straddling him. Her hands cupped his face, and he succumbed completely. He kissed her deeply, then peppered kisses from the corner of her lips down to her collarbone and back up to her lips again. 

He kissed her fervently, afraid that at any point she would disappear. Everything was surreal. The feel of her lips on his, her hair within his fingers, and more than anything, that she was here. She was safe. 

Panting, they pulled apart, and she rested her forehead against his. 

She smiled, her voice husky, “There. You didn’t kiss me. I kissed you. Problem solved”

Oliver half-smiled, his heart heavy. She was everything that he needed, and everything that he couldn’t have.

She sat back, taking his face in her hands. He winced when she made contact with his bruised jaw, and she removed one hand sheepishly, “Sorry.” 

He turned his face into her other hand, placing a kiss on her palm before pulling his face away completely. He couldn’t do this to her. It wasn’t fair. She would be in danger.

“Don’t say it,” she said firmly.

“We can’t do this,” he groaned out, ignoring her plea. He wanted it, didn’t she see how badly he wanted this? But he couldn’t have it.

She frowned and moved off of his lap to sit beside him again, “Was the kiss that bad?”

His heart tightened. He didn’t like hurting her. He was supposed to protect her. This was a mistake. He had to make it right. “No. Not at all,” he said hastily.

“Then why not?” she challenged him.

Why couldn’t she see how detrimental he was? She had to understand. “I hurt everyone that I get close to, Felicity. As Oliver Queen, as Arrow… there is no difference. Look at what happened to you, because of me...” His eyes shone, “You have to understand.”

“Payne was not your fault,” she said, her voice angry.

“If it hadn’t been for me--”

“If it hadn’t been for you, I would probably still be with him,” she raised her voice at him, making him freeze. “No one would miss me. I don’t have family here. It would have taken at least a week to raise an alarm at work. He would have taken me eventually, Oliver. You’re the only reason that I was saved so quickly.”

He gripped her hand tightly. He didn’t want to think about her being with Payne. It was too painful knowing what had already happened to her, much less imagining what else could have happened if she had been there any longer. 

“I’m not in danger because you can save me. You’ll always save me.”

“You don’t know that,” his whispered.

“No, I can’t know it. But I believe it,” she said, her voice gravely serious. “I believe in you.”

“Because of the life I lead--” he started, trying to reiterate his feelings to her. He cared, couldn’t she see? But it was too dangerous, too much risk. Still, her words were rattling around in his head. Could this work? Would he be able to protect her?

“It’s my life, too, Oliver. I get a choice,” she said firmly.

“Felicity---”

“I choose you, Oliver,” she whispered quietly, looking down at her hands. “It’s ok if you don’t do the same.” He could see a tear threatening to fall

“Diggle told me not to do anything if I wasn’t one hundred percent into this,” he admitted. Her eyes found his, and he could see the confusion that lay there. He didn’t want to hurt her anymore.

“I will do everything in my power to protect you. I promise you,” he continued.

She nodded, “I know.”

In an instant, he was crashing his lips against hers. If he was hurting her by staying away, then damn all of his reasons to do it. He couldn’t see her hurt, couldn’t stay away. He would protect her, always. 

There was still the chance that she would get hurt because of her connection to him. But, this way, he would know of the threats. He could keep her close, and he would be able to protect her. It wouldn’t be strange anymore for Oliver Queen and his assistant to be together all of the time. 

They broke apart, and he smiled lightly with his forehead pressed against hers, “I guess we can tell him I’m one hundred percent into this.”

“I’m one hundred percent into you,” she admitted, biting her lip.

His heart was soaring. This morning, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Felicity would even have feelings for him. Everything had changed in a matter of seventy two hours. He still wasn’t sure if he was making the decision, but it couldn’t be the wrong one if they both wanted it, could it? 

She tried to hide a yawn unsuccessfully.

“You need to rest,” Oliver was stern, his brow furrowing. “It’s late.”

“I’d rather you make out with me a little longer,” she grinned sheepishly at him.

He pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “You need to sleep.”

“Stay.”

He nodded and removed his shirt, trying his best to ignore the way that Felicity’s eyes darkened as he did so. Now wasn’t the time, her wounds still fresh. They shifted to lay down on the bed. Oliver reached over next to Felicity and turned the lamp off. She curled into his side, resting her head against his chest. He fell asleep while she was tracing the outline of his Bratva tattoo. For the first time in two days, they both slept soundly through the night.


	8. Epilogue

“This is the last box. I promise,” Felicity was surrounded by empty boxes, and she groaned as she cut open the last one.

Oliver walked back into the living room to help her unpack it, but he stopped short when he saw her bathed in the setting sun from the large windows behind her. Her hair was back in a messy ponytail, and she was dressed in a big t-shirt and yoga pants, but to Oliver, she looked perfect. A messy grin was on his face, and he couldn’t seem to bring himself to care.

She must have felt his gaze because she looked up at him quizzically, “Are you on Vertigo?”

“Just admiring from afar,” he admitted.

“Definitely Vertigo,” she rolled her eyes and continued unpacking. Luckily, the box was small and held mostly picture frames. Oliver joined her, and together they placed the frames around the apartment.

When they were finished, Felicity looked around hesitantly, “What do you think?”

“It looks great,” he said encouragingly.

Felicity had stayed at Queen Manor for a week before she felt comfortable going home, and the night that she had, Oliver had received a panicked phone call late in the night from Felicity after one of her nightmares. She didn’t feel like the apartment was her home anymore, and he couldn’t blame her. Richard had spied on her there for years. There wasn’t the privacy that she once thought she had, and she was more acutely aware than ever that the buildings around hers were all taller, and that there were more vantage points into her apartment windows than she cared for.

After that night, Oliver spent the next week at her place and helping her find another apartment. He'd wondered if she knew how brave and strong she was.

“It’s definitely a bump up,” Felicity said with a smile on her face. “Thank you for the down payment. I really wish you hadn’t done it.”

“Queen Consolidated bonus,” Oliver said quickly, “You never received it when I promoted you.”

Felicity bit back her argument. They’d had fought about it too many times over the last week, but she was secretly happy that Oliver had pushed her into keeping the money.

With it, she had been able to buy her new place instead of rent it. It was bigger than her older apartment, newer and nicer. She had a doorman (something that Oliver had absolutely insisted on, despite her protests), and the building was the tallest in the area. She had a sneaking suspicion that Oliver had paid the owners of the building extra money on her behalf, so that she could afford the place on her own, but she found that she didn’t mind as much as she thought she would. She felt safe, and it had felt like home the moment she stepped through the door. The gigantic bouquet of sunflowers on the kitchen counter when she had first opened the door with her own key hadn’t hurt, either.

“It’s a little sparse,” she looked around self-consciously. She loved her furniture, but she’d added square footage and it left some gaps where she knew there should be more.

“I can have our decorator come over, if you want. Charge it to my account,” he offered.

She groaned, “Absolutely not, Oliver.”

“Why can’t you just let me spoil you?” Oliver frowned. “Other boyfriends get to do it with their girlfriends.”

“Other boyfriends don’t have billions of dollars at their irresponsible disposal.”

“Boyfriend, huh?”

“You said it first,” Felicity’s eyes snapped to him, a panicked note to her voice.

Oliver grinned, “I like the sound of you saying it, though.”

“Oliver Queen, you are an absolute butthead,” Felicity lightly punched him in the chest.

He wrapped his free arm around her and kissed her firmly on the lips. He leaned his forehead against hers, “I never expected you.”

It was true. He had fought his feelings for her so hard after they had saved her, but they had overwhelmed him. After he had succumbed, he knew that he had done the right thing. With Arrow duties lighter than normal because of his collarbone, they’d spent their nights relaxing (he’d almost forgot what that was) and learning each other’s quirks. Hers only made him love her more.

“I hope that’s a good thing,” Felicity said lightly, but he could hear the smile on her lips.

He smirked, “I’d say so.”

The sun had set without them realizing, leaving them cloaked in the darkness.

A knock on the door broke them apart. Felicity opened it, a wide grin spreading across her face, “Diggle!”

“Congratulations, Felicity,” he passed her bottle of wine. He looked past her to Oliver standing in the darkness and smirked, “No electricity?”

“I think too much is the problem,” Oliver quipped.

Felicity blushed deeply and started turning on lights around the apartment.

“The place looks great,” Diggle walked further into the apartment. He and Felicity struck up an easy conversation when there was another knock at the door.

Oliver opened it quickly, forcing a smile on his face when he saw that Roy Harper had accompanied Thea. He had been afraid of that.

“Long time no see, Oliie,” Thea greeted him, but she was already speeding past him to greet Felicity. They’d become fast friends, and he still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Something told him that they would terrorize him collectively.

“Speedy,” Ollie muttered to himself before smiling tightly at Roy. The kid took his hand and shook it, squeezing tightly. Oliver reciprocated and was happy when he saw the moment of shock cross Roy’s face, “Roy.”

“Oliver.”

“Mr. Queen,” Oliver said firmly, squeezing his hand even tighter.

“You can call him Oliver,” said Felicity from his side. He hadn’t seen her appear. She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow, and he reluctantly let his hand go.

Felicity took the bags of food from Roy and lead them into the kitchen, where Thea was already at work pouring wine for everyone. Felicity chattered, “Thanks so much for bringing Chinese, guys. I would have cooked, but it was so crazy moving everything so quickly and getting unpacked and--”

“Don’t worry about it,” Thea laughed. “You can cook next time,” she winked at Felicity.

“Count me in,” Roy added. Felicity had cooked for them all a few times at Queen Manor, and she’d quickly proven her prowess.

She laughed - it was still amazing for Oliver to hear, even after two weeks - and nodded, “Ok, deal.”

Despite the fact that Roy was there (he would never admit that the kid was growing on him), Oliver suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling of contentment. This was what it had felt like before the island. He hadn’t thought that he would feel this normal ever again.

He was glad to be wrong.

\---

“That was nice,” Felicity smiled as she got ready for bed. She looked over her shoulder to Oliver.

“If Roy hadn’t---”

“Don’t even start,” she rolled her eyes. “Give him a break. He makes Thea happy, and he really isn’t that bad.”

“He’s--”

“You trust him with Arrow, but not with your sister,” she countered. “Seems a little selective, don’t you think?”

“Possibly.” He changed the subject, “You haven’t had a nightmare in a few nights.”

“I think that’s thanks to you,” she admitted. “I’m starting to feel a little more normal now.”

He responded with silence and stripped down to his boxers, getting into the bed.

Felicity joined him seconds later, “Don’t brood. I had fun tonight. You’ll ruin it.”

“I’m not brooding,” he said grudgingly.

She laughed, “Yeah, you’re right.” Her fingers traced a spot between his eyes, where a wrinkle had appeared, “You definitely aren’t brooding and you definitely don’t get a crease here every time you brood.”

“I don’t stand a chance, do I?” he smirked. When he went back to being Arrow in a few weeks, after he had finished healing, he didn't know if they would get many moments like this so consistently anymore. He needed to savor them while he could.

“Nope, definitely not.”

He abruptly maneuvered himself so that he was hovering over her, “I’ll have to see what I can do about that.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she countered. “Turn off the lamp.”

He reached over and flipped the switch, shrouding them in darkness, and started kissing his way down her body.

He’d found Felicity alright. And he looked forward to finding her again, and again, and again, for many nights to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading. 
> 
> I hate endings and I didn't want to drag things out too long, so I left you with some shameless fluff.
> 
> This was my first Olicity and also the first thing that I've written in YEARS (thanks for the inspiration, Arrow)! Your words have been incredibly kind, and I appreciate all of the support. Hoping to write another very soon!


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